DAR Capital launches India movie fund
DAR Capital Group, a London-headquartered investment banking and private equity firm, has launched a INR1 billion ($18.6 million) movie fund that will provide financing to projects throughout India. It is among the first vehicles to be approved under India’s alternative investment fund (AIF) regulatory system.
The DAR MentorCap Film Fund will be operated by DAR Media, a subsidiary of the private equity firm, and investment advisory company MentorCap Management. It will have an investment period of five years with a liquidation option after three years.
Arun Rangachari, chairman of DAR Capital, told LiveMint that the investors are already on board. Although the fund is INR1 billion in size, there is a green-shoe option, which means that additions can be made to the corpus. Target investors are high net worth individuals and institutions.
"There will be four-five investors for the entire corpus. We are not going retail with our product offering. We are aiming to offer a minimum IIR of 30% per annum," said Rangachari.
The will focus on movies with budgets of INR40-300 million, but will not have exposure to full production costs. Neither will investors have the option to participate in television content, music or other ancillary businesses.
Up to 1,100 movies are released in India each year, with 3.5 billion cinema tickets sold, according to Cinema Capital Venture Fund. PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that the industry will generate revenues of INR 176 billion in 2012.
More on Media
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.