Brands
Adlabs Entertainment takes IPO route to repay partial debt
MUMBAI: Adlabs Entertainment, the company that owns and operates Imagica-The Theme Park has proposed to open a public issue of up to 20,326,227 equity shares of face value of Rs 10 including a share premium per equity share on 10 March.
The company has fixed the price band from Rs 221-230 per equity share. The issue comprises a fresh issue of 18,326,227 equity shares and an offer of sale of 2,000,000 equity shares by Thrill Park Limited. The bid/issue will close on 12 March. The minimum bid lot is 65 equity shares and in multiples of 65 equity shares thereafter.
The issue constitutes 25.44 per cent of the post-issue paid-up equity share capital of the company. Adlabs Entertainment, in consultation with the Global Co-ordinators and Lead Managers, will offer a discount of Rs 12 on the issue price to retail individual bidders.
The issue is being made through the Book Building process wherein at least 75 per cent of the issue shall be allotted on a proportionate basis to Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB), provided that the company and the selling shareholder may allocate up to 60 per cent of the QIB Potion to Anchor Investors on a discretionary basis. Anchor investors can bid on Anchor Investor Bidding Date, that is 9 March.
The money raised through the Initial Public Offering (IPO) will be used for partial repayment/pre-payment of loans. As per the company, it currently is under a debt of Rs 1100 crore, and hopes to repay close to Rs 330-350 crore through the IPO.
Talking about further plans, Adlabs Entertainment chairman and managing director Manmohan Shetty said, “While the money raised through the IPO will be used for repayment of partial debt. We plan to increase our employee strength from the current 1500 to 2000 by this year end. Not only this, we are planning to open another Imagica in South or North. But, the money raised right now will not be used forfuture plans.”
For the six months ended 30 September 2014, the company’s total income and loss after tax was Rs 73.325 crore and Rs 53.529 crore respectively. Adlab’s revenue from sale of admission tickets, from the F&B operations and retail and merchandise operations for six months ended 30 September, 2014 was Rs 55.382 crore, Rs 11.980 crore and 3.886 crore respectively.
The company will soon be launching its hotel chain as well. The first phase of the proposed 287 key hotel, to be called Novotel Imagica Khopoli, comprising 116 keys, is expected to be completed by March, 2015.
Brands
Practo names Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence
New vice president of artificial intelligence to mine healthcare data and sharpen care delivery
BENGALURU: India’s healthtech race just picked up speed. Practo has appointed Cijo George as vice president of artificial intelligence, tasking him with wiring AI deep into the company’s sprawling healthcare platform.
George will steer AI strategy and execution, embedding machine intelligence across care navigation, doctor-facing tools and overall platform intelligence. He will work across product, engineering and clinical teams to rewire how patients search for and access care — and how doctors deliver treatment with greater consistency and precision.
He reports directly to Shashank ND, co-founder and chief executive officer.
Shashank ND said years of building healthcare data across patients, providers and treatment outcomes had laid the foundation for more advanced AI applications. Artificial intelligence, he added, can unlock the value of that data to improve patient outcomes and equip doctors with actionable insights. He described George’s experience in building production-grade AI systems as closely aligned with Practo’s long-term vision.
George brings nearly two decades of experience spanning machine learning, AI platforms and product engineering. Most recently at Observe.AI, he led work on large-scale AI systems deployed by global enterprises. Before that, at Belong.co, he drove platform and AI initiatives focused on search and personalisation in the HR technology space. He also worked with the Advanced Technology Group at NetApp, contributing to machine-learning and data-science projects for distributed systems.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science with a master’s degree in high performance computing, George said the chance to apply AI to directly improve patient experience and clinical delivery drew him to the role. Practo’s scale and its extensive longitudinal healthcare data, he added, offer significant room for innovation.
The move comes as digital health platforms double down on artificial intelligence to boost patient engagement, streamline provider workflows and sharpen decision-making. For Practo, the prescription is clear: turn data into diagnosis, and algorithms into advantage.
