Pentamedia shareholders clear Net unit sale

CHENNAI: Shareholders of Indian multimedia firm Pentamedia Graphics on Friday

approved the hive-off of its Internet broadcast venture and a preferential

allotment of six million shares for proposed acquisitions.

Chairman V Chandrasekaran told reporters after an extraordinary meeting of

shareholders that the Net venture Numtv.com was still being valued by Ernst

& Young, but the hive-off would be at a price not less than $15 million.

"We should complete this in about 3-4 months and we will be giving an

equity stake to bandwidth providers and channel partners," he said.

Numtv.com, which has over 200,000 registered users, currently airs 30

television channels on its portal www.numtv.com.

Pentamedia is in talks to make acquisitions of digital assets and business of

10 companies, four in India and six overseas, Chandrasekaran said.

He said this includes Film Roman where it has already agreed to purchase a

majority stake for $15 million. The preferential allotment will be made at a

price of at least Rs 490 as per the Securities and Exchange Board of India

guidelines, he said.

Shareholders also approved a resolution for the issue of American Depositary

Receipts or Global Depositary Receipts up to $250 million with a greenshoe

option of 15 per cent.

The company had sought this approval for the second time as it did not act

upon the earlier shareholder approval in May.

The firm's shares were down 3.07 per cent, or Rs 11.35, at Rs 358.20 at 12:12

pm (0642 GMT). The 30-share benchmark Bombay index was down 2.32 per cent at

4,171.20.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.