(13 November 2007 11:40 pm)

MUMBAI: Wire & Wireless (India) Ltd, Zee's demerged cable TV distribution company, plans to pump in Rs 10 billion over the next four years in a reworked business strategy after Deepak Chandnani took over as CEO following the exit of Jagjit Kohli.

WWIL had earlier said that it planned to put in Rs 7.14 billion over two years, earmarking Rs 3.28 billion for set-top boxes (STBs), Rs 2.21 billion towards hardware, and Rs 1.14 billion for customer acquisition.

"We have firmed up an investment plan of Rs 10 billion over four years. This will be mainly for acquisitions, capex and cost of acquiring digital customers," Chandnani tells Indiantelevision.com.

WWIL is weighing various fund raising options but has not finalised on any mix of instruments yet. The company's prior plans to raise Rs 4 billion through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) was not cleared by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) as it was fresh from listing on the stock exchanges.

WWIL has made some acquisitions including taking a 51 per cent stake in Tisai Satellite, a multi-system operator (MSO) in Kalyan. "We are targeting more such MSOs and independent operators," says Chandnani while refusing to disclose further details.

The valuation of cable networks varies in the region between 12-18 times of ARPU (average revenue per user), industry watchers say. MSOs, however, are willing to pay more premium where they see a strategic fit.

WWIL has an aggressive HITS (headend-in-the-sky) plan and has signed for transponder space on Thaicom satellite. "There is a huge opportunity to take digital to analogue cable. That will be our next big effort," says Chandnani.

WWIL is setting up digital headends in Bangalore, Pune, Ludhiana and Lucknow. "We expect to start our digital operations in these cities by month-end," says Chandnani.