Expect revenues of over Rs 6000 cr, EBITDA of over Rs 2000 crore, says Dish TV

Anil Dua, group CEO, Dish TV  is confident of clocking revenues of Rs 6000 crore and EBITDA of around Rs 2000 crore. EBITDA margins to also show improvement, he said.

On the business outlook front,  they hope to continue building on  subscriber base and continue to investing into the future with  new products, said Dua in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Talking about synergies from Videocon merger, he said we have realised synergies in several items - interest costs, power costs, logistics, transport, administration etc.

With regards to due payments, he said, "All payments to banks, to suppliers, to content providers, to broadcasters will be on time and we will be making substantial payment this year as well as next year and we will be very comfortable even at the end of March 2020."

A: Yes, there has been a downgrade on the short-term bank facility and this is essentially on account of delay in a Rs 250 crore short-term loan. I want to make it clear this is temporary. This is because of bunching of some payments. We have already paid Rs 850 crore in the last 8 months including interest and principal, and we will be paying other Rs 600 crore in these six months including this Rs 250 crore delayed payment. Everything will get paid by March. All payments due to content providers will be taken care of.

A: We have current debt including bank guarantee and letters of credit (LCs) of around Rs 2,500 crore and will be paying about Rs 600 crore by March-end. So we will be at the debt of less than Rs 2,000 crore and our EBITDA is more than Rs 2,000 crore, so we are quite comfortable.

A: Yes. We will be paying about Rs 800 crore or so next year as well. So we will be quite comfortable.

A: Mostly it will be done by internal accruals but the company is also in touch with our banking partners, we hope to get alternate credit facilities to finance our regular capex, so that we can normalise the utilisation of a cash flow towards the debt repayment.

A: This has been special year for the industry as you know there was a new tariff order which was introduced, which we have been supporting. There was transitional disruption which has all settled down now, so we are doing well. We hope to continue building on our subscriber base, continue investing into our future with our new products like our android box.

We expect our revenues and EBITDA to be on expected lines. So we should be doing over Rs 6,000 crore of revenues and over Rs 2,000 crore of EBITDA. Our EBITDA margins should improve as we have already seen in the last quarter.

A: There have been some transitional disruptions, so our revenues are around last year’s level right now. On the new accounting basis, we had reported about Rs 1,820 crore of income out of which Rs 1,618 crore was subscription revenue. But on a last year basis, we should be doing over Rs 6,000 crore more and we should be doing probably close to Rs 2,100 crore of EBITDA with a better EBITDA margin.

A: We have reported good synergies last year. They have helped us invest in the business, grow our business. We have realised synergies in several items - interest costs, power costs, logistics, transport, administration, in all these areas we have realised good synergies. I think the only area where we are expecting to realise more synergies is in the content cost, which on account of new tariff order – there have been changes but that is one thing which going forward we will be working further on.r

A: I will not be in a position to comment on that.

A: This is something which is handled by the family corporate office but I only want to reiterate that the intrinsic asset value of Dish TV remains very strong. The fundamentals are very strong, the business is doing well. So on any strategic issue, I will leave it for the family corporate office to comment upon.

A: We will be making all payments on schedule including the Rs 250 crore delayed payment. We will be paying around Rs 600 crore in these six months. We have already paid about Rs 850 crore. So everything will be on schedule. All payments to banks, to suppliers, to content providers, to broadcasters will be on time and we will be making substantial payment this year as well as next year and we will be very comfortable even at the end of March 2020, with our debt obligation being lower than our planned EBITDA for the year.