Dish TV sells stake

Subhash Chandra's direct-to-home venture Dish TV has announced that it has sold 4.9% stake in the company to Indivision India Partners, a Mauritius-based private equity firm promoted by Kishore Biyani's Future Capital Holdings, for Rs 250 crore.

Dish TV will raise the money in two tranches. It will do a preferntial allotment of 12.5 million equity shares of Rs 1 each at a price of Rs 100 to raise Rs 125 crore. Indivision will also subscribe to 96,15,385 warrants, which will be converted into equity at Rs 130 a share, 18 months later.

The cash will be deployed to expand Dish TVs operations. "We intend to raise over Rs 1,000 crore in the next two years for our growth strategy," Arun Kapoor, CEO, Dish TV, told Business Standard recently.

Currently, the direct-to-home service provider has around 2.6 million subscribers — a market share of 67% of the 3.9 million subscribers in the market.

Kapoor said Dish TV aims to add over 1 million subscribers each year, and by March 2011, hopes to have around 8 million subscribers. As of now Dish TV has a presence in 4,300 towns and in the next two years it plans to operate in 1,500 to 2,000 more towns.

Via Business Standard