ACK Media has acquired India Book House (IBH) as part of its strategy to develop `end to end` content, distribution and experience delivery capabilities for family entertainment. The new entity will be one of the largest integrated publishing and distribution firms in India.
Speaking at the announcement Samir Patil the CEO and founder of ACK Media said , “This acquisition is essential for our overall strategy of expanding the children`s media category to all forms – print, video, games, toys, merchandize, and other products. We are keen to have a direct relationship with the end customer and this is one step forward.“
ACK Media is also looking to raise nearly Rs 1 billion in the next 18 months to expand its portfolio of products and promote itself in India and abroad.
“With an additional investment of Rs 900 million-1 billion, our objective is to take this figure, over the next three-four years, to the Rs 5 billon mark,“ said Samir Patil.
He further added that the money will be pumped into four main growth areas. The first of these will be expanding the reach of the firm`s content and products. ACK Media will also look to expand its portfolio of characters and brands, both organically and through acquisitions.
“We are hoping to generate Rs 1.25 billion in revenue in fiscal 2010-2011“, said Goel.
ACK Media plans to grow the business by creating more children`s content in English and regional languages to leverage the IBH pipeline, acquiring new publishing partners, adding new products categories (e.g., merchandise, home video), deepening the network in 50+ cities, and entering the direct-to-consumer market in a big way.
Ashish Goel, chief operating and financial officer of ACK Media will be the managing director of the new entity , a one-stop shop for people looking to buy children-related content or merchandise said, “We have been working very closely with IBH for past year and I am very excited by the tremendous growth potential of the business. The reality of the market place is that while media consumption is increasing there are very few ways to effectively reach a paying audience. This is true not just in the Tier 2, 3 towns but also in the Metros. We will invest aggressively in the business to fill this gap by creating an IT enabled, customer centric distributor that can reach an unmatched number of cities and vendors in India.“
“The new entity would have a robust infrastructure of 10 offices in major metro cities across India, a distribution network that includes over 2,500 stores and over 22,000 vendors, thus allowing us to penetrate not just the top 12 cities, but the top 400 cities in India in a very meaningful manner,“ he further added.
Source: My Iris