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Jayanta Mallick

Co-production, distribution deal likely soon

Kolkata , Nov. 2

G V Films Ltd is close to signing an agreement with € 50.5-million Mondo TV S.p.A of Italy for co-production of animated cartoons in India for global market and acquiring distribution rights for English and dubbed version of 1,500 titles from Mondo's library for South Asia and the ASEAN markets. Mondo is also negotiating for 7-10 per cent stake in GV Films. The agreement also envisages outsourcing of content production for Mondo at GV's facility.

Mr A. Venkatramani, one of the directors of GV Films, confirmed that the company was in an advanced stage of negotiations for a partnership in pre-, post-, and production levels in animation. But he declined to divulge further before wrapping up the deal.

Due diligence

According to merchant banking sources in Mumbai and in London, a due diligence exercise by a leading UK-based merchant banker is currently on. "The deal is expected to be through in the next two to three weeks", sources close to the development said.

Sources also said that for renewable distribution rights for five years, GV is likely to pay $5 million as a minimum guaranteed total value. The deal for distribution rights, outsourcing and co-production, according to industry sources, may open up a revenue stream worth $20 million a year for GV Films.

Mondo TV S.p.A is the flagship of the Mondo TV group, which is involved in production, distribution of cartoon series and full-length animated features for television and theatre viewing. It is also into other related areas such as audiovisual distribution, musical distribution, multimedia utilisation and merchandising. It has produced a library of more than 1,100 episodes. It also owns the distribution rights for additional 5,500 episodes.

For GV Films, the deal would mark its second serious initiative outside India. GV Films has recently tied up with 1-Net Singapore, a subsidiary of Mediacorp Technologies, for providing infrastructure and dedicated bandwidth to the company's film Web portal filmsnfilms.com to cater to their US, European and Singapore markets.

However, the stock finished weak on the BSE. It closed at Rs 9.08, down 1.94 per cent. against Wednesday's close of Rs 9.26. Trading volumes spurted to 14.96 lakh shares against the two-week average of 11.58 lakh shares.

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