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Tata Sky to invest up to $200 Mn
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007, 20:30 IST
Mumbai: The Direct to Home (DTH) service launched by Tata Sky last year is planning a second round of funding of about $200 million for which it is in touch with various private companies like Providence, Carlyle, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and Apax Partners.
Tata Sky's fund-raising is timed to match with the future launch of Reliance Communications and Bharti's DTH operations. In order to face the competition from Reliance and Bharti, Tata Sky needs to be improved in terms of infrastructure and technology.
"We have been approached by several private equity players. If and when we decide to go in for a second round of funding, we will let you know," said Vikram Kaushik, CEO, Tata Sky.
Sources also said that the Tata group would retain up to 61 percent of equity with itself looking to take the company into public in the future. Established in 2004, Tata Sky is an 80:20 joint venture between the Tata group and television network Star.
It is currently available in 4,200 towns across India and the company plans to cover another 1,500 towns by the year-end.