Hindustan Media Ventures Limited

Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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Anna Abraham

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Yash

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Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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Piyush Gupta

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As far as the outlook on the raw material cost is concerned, unfortunately, the outlook is slightly weak at this point in time.

— Piyush Gupta

So, I think overall, it's a mixed bag, but I would say, given the macro situation, there's a little bit of pressure on advertisement, but I believe more clarity will emerge after the first quarter of this fiscal.

— Piyush Gupta

To the best of our ability, we borrowed those resources from our sister concern, HT media, but that's a publicly traded company and they are minority shareholders also in that.

— Piyush Gupta

Q

My question is regarding HMVL. We have seen almost a similar level of cash in this year as well. But for last 2-3 years, I don't see any plans for better utilization of that cash, like it's just giving some interest income, but that is also fluctuating. Any concrete plans on utilization of that cash? Thank you Pawan for the question. So, there are 2 parts to your question. First of all, interest income, it’s not a little bit of interest income. It’s a reasonably well-governed treasury. So, if you look at the details of the interest income, it’s a substantial 10% post-tax kind of yield that cas

Management

Q

Piyush, I have one question with respect to the Digital business. So, from what I understand, there was a plan by the company to merge all these group assets like Digicontent and the Radio business and all those which are separately listed. So, what are the plans over there? And secondly, there was a sharp growth, so what led to that sharp up-growth? Or maybe we are looking at something bigger into that because the competitors are doing large investments into that.

Piyush Gupta

Anurag, just tell me the second part of the question. First part, I've understood. What are the growth plans for the Digital business? May 30, 2022 First, on the scheme of reorganization that we had proposed, which unfortunately because the shareholders did not accede to, couldn’t go ahead. Now, we definitely still believe that we have to again put down some scheme, which is acceptable to the shareholders. Because the whole thought process was that we have to put a lot of growth capital into our digital companies and our radio business, which is now again coming back from a COVID overhang. And

Q

What is the outlook for advertisement revenues? And similarly, on the raw material side, how would you look at the newsprint cost?

Piyush Gupta

Sumit, had you asked me this question at the end of December, just after we had exited the festive season, I would have said that our outlook on the Ad revenues is very bullish, and we saw that happening. But then Omicron came in January. And right now, we are all talking about inflation and Central Bank taking actions and so on and so forth. So as far as the outlook on revenue is concerned, I would say it's still good. We have already built our plans, and we are going for a growth plan. But only after let's say, this first quarter, we will get a clearer picture depending on the macroeconomic

Q

One question is with regards to HMVL. The new age business, which you are talking about, the Digital business, is this lying in HMVL now? Because we are seeing you have started giving segment separate unallocated amount worth Rs. 55 crores, if I'm not wrong. So, is it that this investment now lies in HMVL?

Piyush Gupta

Yes. So, I think my colleague, Anna, would like to speak about it. The simple answer is yes. But, Anna, please go ahead. Yes. we have reported a segment called Digital. That revenues are part HT Media division and subsidiaries of HT Media. There is the New Businesses that we talked about incubating and that definitely lies in Hindustan Media Ventures Limited and is part of the unallocated segment there. And in your investor presentation, this unallocated segment goes where - - is it separate? It is separate. This is unallocated. So, we only talk about Print, Radio and Digital in the investor p

Q

Pleasure to connect with you again. Actually, I have one question and one observation to make. You shared that regarding Digicontent and HT Digital media stream, you will have to go back to the shareholder with a better proposal. Now my observation is that if you go back and look at what commentary you gave 2-3 years ago, while demerging these businesses, okay? The shareholders supported the proposal then to demerge, taking your word at face value on why you want to demerge. So that these businesses are in focus, that there was strategic intent in this direction that these businesses should su

Piyush Gupta

Yes. Now that the shareholders have voted against the resolution to merge these businesses, I think there needs to be a rethink on why? It is not that in your proposal, you gave us a few shares lesser or few shares more that shareholders will vote for or against the proposal. Management commentary needs to be consistent. When you are demerging or merging a business, there's to be a 10-year, 20-year outlook because businesses can't deliver in 2 years or 3 years. The other thing is that you will lose trust, on Digicontent, you have amortized some close to Rs 210-220 crores. Amortization is over.

Q

Yes. My questions are regarding the news aggregators, they're getting much higher valuations than us, like is there any strategy to get into that space like news aggregation? And the other question is regarding online Ad share, which we are losing from the past due to this online space. Is there any strategy to claw back some market share? First, on the aggregators, the news aggregation business, Hari, I'd like to say you should wait for some time. We have some businesses that we are thinking. I can't exactly say whether they will be in the news aggregation segment. And I absolutely understand

Management

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Can you throw some light on this Ad against Equity business of yours. It seems now a lot of investment, again, is happening from HMVL. Can you throw some light how we are structuring the ad against equity business? Thank you very much. I think it's a fair question. Yes, it's not like a lot of investments are now again happening from HMVL. For the last couple of years, we have been doing this entire business from HMVL only. Earlier 5 - 7 years ago, we used to do this business from HTML only and for the last couple of years, we are doing only from HMVL. How they are structured is very simple. Th

Yash

Yes. But one more question, we are seeing there is a very big hit, which is coming under OCI i.e. other comprehensive income and then you have this forfeiture income, which you keep on showing now it is almost to the tune of Rs. 56 crores. That means what, these deals are not worth and then you decide to forfeit. Not exactly. Look, accounting runs in a slightly different way. There are multiple lines in the P&L and balance sheet that gets impacted for May 30, 2022 accounting. So where does the forfeiture income come from? There are contractual obligations on the counterparty to use certain lev

Q

Sir, if you could share the realization per copy for English and Hindi for the fourth quarter as well as the full financial year.

Piyush Gupta

Vishal, it's competitively sensitive data. I can only tell you that the realization per copy for the fourth quarter and indeed for the full year is on an uptick. Not just us but the industry as a whole is passing on some part of the increased input prices to the readers. But I wouldn't like to speak out that number because it's a competitively very sensitive thing. May 30, 2022 Yes, no problem, Sir. And, on the near term, are we seeing that the prices would go up or would remain to similar levels as of now? Are you talking about realization or are you talking about newsprint prices? Newsprint

Q

Sir, due to COVID, the physical readership has gone down a lot. Is there any company specific strategy to increase the physical readership again?

Piyush Gupta

Yes, that's a good question, So, if you break down this whole pandemic after the first day, which was really in 2020, the copies itself came down very sharply. And as you know, the readership is a derived number out of the number of copies. Right now, at a broad level between English and Hindi, our copies are already tracking to between 70% to 80% of the pre- COVID levels depending upon which particular edition, which particular city or town etc. Readership is therefore tracking back. We are in a situation where we are gradually building up our copies. So, I don't think readership per copy has