Neo Sports Broadcast to invest Rs 258.53 cr in India

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent | Mumbai
The government on Thursday has approved 26 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) proposals that will bring in Rs 1,042.91 crore into the country. Neo Sports Broadcast's plan to invest Rs 258.53 crore is among the proposals approved on the recommendation of FIPB.

Neo Sports Broadcast's FDI will be in uplinking and broadcasting "non-news and current affairs" television channels. The company will issue fresh equity or equity-linked instruments to bring in the foreign fund as per a proposal cleared by the government.

"We will use the funds to create a programming and telecast rights corpus. We will also launch two niche channels in the last quarter of 2009, which will be in the non-sports genre." says Harish Thawani, chairman, Neo Sports Broadcast.

Preferential allotment of shares would be issued by the sports broadcasting company to its existing investors, including 3i, Oman Investment Fund (OIF) and Cisco, to raise the said amount, which will be utilised to fund expansion plans of the company.

Neo Sports Broadcast is the broadcasting arm of Nimbus Communications, which owns Neo Cricket and Neo Sports sports channels.