Hindustan Media Ventures Limited (HTMEDIA.NS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. I'm Amit Madaan from Investor Relations team, HT Media Group. I would like to welcome you all to the Quarter 2 2021 Earnings Webinar. [Operator Instructions] I now invite Ms. Anna Abraham, Head, Investor Relations, to take forward the webinar. Thank you, and over to you, Anna.

Thank you, Amit. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the earnings webinar of HT Media Group. This morning, we will be covering the results for the quarter ended September 30, 2020. On the call from our end is Mr. Piyush Gupta, group CFO; Mr. Sandeep Gulati, CFO of Hindustan Media Ventures Limited; Mr. Pervez Bajan, our Group Controller; and members of the Investor Relations team. We hope that you are all staying safe and healthy. Given the exceptional circumstances created by COVID, we are presenting the results to you from our respective homes, so please bear with us if there is any technical glitch. Kindly note that our remarks today will track with the presentation on the Zoom webinar, which is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website. We will now start with our presentation. Moving on to Slide 2 of the presentation. Before we get started on the content, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements, which is on your screens right now. Kindly keep it in mind as we proceed with our comments on the call. Moving on to Slide #3. As you can see, this is what we are proposing to cover today. We will start the presentation with the remarks by Piyush on our consolidated financial performance for the second quarter. Then we will move on to detailed remarks on our performance of our English and Hindi Print and Radio business. This will be followed by an update on the whistleblower complaint that we received a month or so back. After the remarks conclude, we will open for Q&A. [Operator Instructions] With that, over to you, Piyush.

Thank you, Anna, and good morning, everyone. I hope everyone's remaining safe in these tough times. I'll quickly go into the table of content, which my colleague and I have already articulated. So jumping straight into Slide #5, which is the consolidated financial summary. As we can see in the second quarter, the total revenue tracked to INR 302 crores as opposed to INR 569 crores, which is a degrowth of 47%. EBITDA came in at negative INR 16 crores vis-á-vis INR 69 crores, which is less by INR [ 24 ] crores. EBITDA margin came in at a negative 5%, PAT at minus INR 41 crores, NPAT margin at a minus -13%. Net cash is INR 1,033 crores. If you look at the highlights on the right side of the screen, EBITDA for the second quarter at INR 16 crore, margin at minus 14% (sic) [ 5% ]. Operating EBITDA is higher by INR 38 crores versus the first quarter. Net cash improved by INR 27 crores in the first half of this fiscal year. And continued focus on cost controls and maintaining strong liquidity held the group in good stead. If I may move forward to the next slide. Now I come into the business unit performance. First on the Print side. If you look at the Print performance, ad revenues came to INR 162 crores as against INR 342 crores, which is a 52% degrowth. Circulation revenue, however, degrew by 34%. This is for a strong realization for copy initiative across both Hindi and English segments. Operating revenue as a consequence came to INR 225 crores. Operating EBITDA, as already covered, was at a negative INR 4 crores, and operating EBITDA margin at minus 2%. If you look at the commentary in the bottom, continued pressure on ad yields and volumes continue. However, sharp pickup sequentially has happened if you look at it vis-á-vis quarter 1, which is the extreme right, but one column. You can compare that there's a sharp recovery vis-á-vis the first quarter but still far from the same period last year. Circulation revenue witnessed month-on-month improvement, and operating EBITDA is nearing a breakeven on the back of cost-control initiatives, which have been initiated by the company for both direct and indirect costs. If I may move forward and do a deep dive into the English business. As you can see on Slide #10, our ad revenues in English business had a decline of 62%, came in at INR 76 crores vis-á-vis INR 203 crores. However, vis-á-vis the first quarter, they have nearly doubled at 112% growth. Circulation revenue, on the other hand, which came in at INR 3 crores, was an 82% decline in the second quarter. If you look at the revenue drivers of the -- ad yields and realization per copy have been one of the major reasons vis-á-vis last year. Both national and local advertising continues to be impacted on a year-on-year basis. However, we are witnessing a sequential improvement. Ad volumes from category like auto, government, education and FMCG and real estate have shown some early signs of improvement. Moving forward, if I go to the Hindi business. Ad revenue came in at INR 86 crores, which is a 38% decline, and circulation revenue came in at INR 41 crores, which is an 18% decline. Some of the key drivers have been a softness in ad and circulation revenue on a Y-o-Y basis. However, as I said earlier, the realization per copy are higher than last year, and it's a quarter-on-quarter improvement in ad volume for most of the categories, led by auto, education, FMCG and retail. If I may move forward to our Radio business, the financial performance. The second quarter revenue came in at INR 15 crores vis-á-vis INR 48 crores, which is a 68% decline, and operating EBITDA was at a negative INR 17 crores. Ad yields and volumes are down as compared to last year though have improved over the last quarter. And growth in inventory utilization has been witnessed on a sequential basis, but they are still far from the normalized time period before COVID. If I may just go to the other matters. As most of you are aware, we have done stock exchange filing on a certain whistleblower complaint that we had received in August. This was alleging irregularities and potential misconduct in the Radio business. Further to the preliminary investigation, we had appointed a reputed law firm who engaged two leading accounting forms to undertake the investigation. A thorough investigation, including forensic analysis, was conducted by the investigation team. And the allegations were established to be correct, but it was concluded that the anomalous practice was limited only at stream of revenue in the Radio business, which is called pure money. An impact of the same overstatement in revenue for the various financial year is as below. For '17-'18, it was INR 5.2 crores; for '18-'19, INR 6 crores; '19-'20, INR 22.6 crores; and in the first half, it's a negative INR 1.3 crores, which means that utilization of that prebilling has happened to the extent of INR 1.3 crores. As a consequence, the company has already revised the financial results for FY '19-'20 for all the quarters. And the prior period amounts, as they were not material, have been adjusted in opening retained earnings as of 1st of April 2019. If I go to the next chart, which is Chart #17. You can look at the effects of restatement. The total revenue has been restated downwards by INR 21 crores. EBITDA has been downstated by INR 7 crores. EBITDA margin comes at 16%, and PAT comes in at INR 345 crores, which is a 127% variance vis-á-vis last year, and PAT margin at a minus 15%. On the right side, if you see the commentary, the revision is an impact of the investigation, which I have already highlighted. Also, because we were opening the last year's results as the accounting standard mandates at the post balance sheet date items, after the balance sheet date but before the signing had to be impacted. Therefore, all those effects have been taken in the March 2020 results. Financial impact of revenue restated is INR 21 crores, EBITDA restated is INR 7 crores and PAT is down by INR 127 crores, which is the impairment analysis, which was carried out as of 31st March, with the current information that we have until 31st of September based on the accounting standard. With that, I come to the end of the presentation, and I give it back to Anna. Thank you. Anna [indiscernible].

Thank you, Piyush. Sure. Thank you, Piyush. We'll now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from Depesh Kashyap.

[indiscernible]. So you have to just move on. Yes.

Sure. The next question is from [indiscernible].

So my question is with regards to the Print business EBITDA. Now I can see in the investor presentation saying that it has been near breakeven on the back of cost-control initiatives. So my question is what on cost have we targeted in the overheads and whether these are sustainable in the coming years?

[ Iyesh ]...

Yes, Anna, please go ahead.

Yes. Anna here. So we've pretty much looked at all cost lines of both direct and indirect for the Print business. A significant component has come from raw material costs, given that there was a drop in period in the extended lockdown period, and we are still not completely back. However, we've also done a lot of productivity exercises across the group and in overheads in fast track joint, in all other lines as well. We have looked at it. To the extent of cost of raw materials and et cetera, depending on how fast the volumes come back, there would be some change. And on employee-related, some of the cost savings are linked to increment decisions, et cetera so, to that extent, would not be sustainable. But pretty much about 50%, 55% of this component, we think we should be able to sustain in the near term.

Any costs apart from [indiscernible], I mean the newsprint material and the staff cost?

Yes. Yes. That's what I was -- yes.

[indiscernible]. If you can just highlight a few of those costs in particular.

So employee cost, overheads -- and overheads includes all infrastructure-related technology costs, marketing costs, your copybook building cost, every single line item that there is a cost reduction.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from [ Sanjesh Jain ].

Yes. One question on how has the ad revenue been in this festive season now that you have crossed a lot part of this festive season? How has been the recovery during this festive season?

Anna, would you like to take that? Anna, you're on mute.

So month -- sorry. My apologies. [ Sanjesh ], month-to-month, we are seeing improvement in ad revenues. And we are seeing pickup in some categories like FMCG, retail, auto, et cetera, in the festive season. But is it back to the -- far from it. So there is improvement. There is significant pickup in volumes during the festive period, but it's still back to the earlier years.

Is the Print more impacted and Radio more impacted than the television ad revenue? Because television player, broadcasters are already talking of a minute decline over last year, but they are significantly recovered, while we still say that we are far from what we were last year. So structurally, we are down, and it looks journey back to the peaks of pre COVID or FY '19, which was big for Print and Radio. Is the journey difficult to go there?

So I'll just answer your TV question first. So TV has a sizable dependency of FMCG as a category, which contributes about 75% of their advertising pool at any point of time. They have only 3 or 4 categories, which actually contribute 75%, and of which FMCG is the biggest segment. Therefore, as long as FMCG is doing well, TV will do relatively well. Segments like -- therefore, that is the reason why you're seeing that TV is not as impacted as Print. Print, on the contrary, has about 12 to 13 categories, which contribute to the advertising revenue, which is also a strength. But in the current circumstances with such a pandemic impacting performance across industries, it is a lot of sectors which are not doing well, and it is only 2, 3 sectors which are doing well. Radio has an additional impact to the fact that most of their customers are more in the MSME space, while Print has a lot of national players as well. So to that extent, Radio has been a little more impacted because that is a space, which is -- which was anyway before COVID, also facing a little bit of problem, given the slowness in economic growth as well as financing issues at the MSMEs on the whole phasing. I would also like to add that in Hindi, the volumes are almost back on Print, and the declines have significantly reduced. It's English which is facing a slightly more challenges.

And [ Sanjesh ], this is Piyush, just if I may just add on to what Anna said. When you compare with broadcast, one of the big differences in this quarter has been IPL as well, which has been a big revenue churn as far as the broadcast is concerned. So really, to isolate the impact of the pandemic, we'll have to look at the next quarter's performance to understand what has been the real impact because it is artificially impacted because of broadcast. And as Anna was pointing out that in Hindi, volumes are nearly as much as the one in prepandemic level, but the major dynamic which has happened is that these are under pressure across Hindi and English, and they -- looks like it will take some time to recover back to the prepandemic level, which is contributing to the revenue shortfall across the print sector and radio sector. Radio, of course, is a very hyper local medium and directly linked to the MSME sector.

Fair. Just one question. I was more talking about the [indiscernible] who have actually negatively impacted from IPL. Even they are talking of a sharp recovery. That's one. But on the Radio, if you look at the KPMG estimates, the advertisement pool for Radio is [indiscernible] At around INR 17 billion. So in FY '22, that's FY '22. So FY '22 Radio revenue is equivalent to FY '14 levels. Do you think the investment in Radio will not yield the IRR we anticipated during the bidding of those stations? So how do you see Radio as a medium term here? [indiscernible] is not...

So [ Sanjesh ] -- yes. I think that's a good question. Look, I think I won't, at this point in time because we are undergoing the full impact of pandemic. At this point in time, it will be very tough to call whether they will -- the assumptions which were there at the time of your [ PST ] investment, will [ they rectify ] or not. I still believe that with our underpenetrated nature and hyper local in nature, Radio will have a significant role to play. But now that it has set back 2 or 3 years, it will definitely take some time. So we are very hopeful once Radio recovers, we'll be able to recoup our investments and most of the assumptions. Of course, it is delayed by 2 to 3 years, very clear.

Got it. Just one last question from my side. Where is the subscription versus pre-COVID?

You mean subscription in terms of copies?

Yes, in terms of copies.

So broadly, let me just get the data versus last year. Anna, would you -- so English is at about 50% of -- on a Y-o-Y basis. Hindi, however, has recovered much better and is nearly at about 70-odd percent.

80%.

So this is not [indiscernible] what we are talking of as of now?

80%. 80% right now, yes.

As of date. As of date.

So what is this 20% which we are missing? Is it a cash sale or a spot sale or a...

Look, I think -- across. Across. So what has happened is the newspapers, at least in the big 3 cities of Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, stopped going into a lot of household consequent to the pandemic, and some of the compounds in these big cities have still not allowed their entry of newspapers. That is -- we are missing the sales. So once those conditions are lifted, we believe that the newspapers will start going back. There will be some permanent loss, whereby some people might not take the newspapers back because of the health and safety issue. But Hindi, on the other hand, which has already come back to 80%, has shown much more resurgence. And we believe, in a couple of quarters, English should come back to 80% to 90% level as well.

The next question is from [ Rahul ].

Given the cost material -- cost of material savings, would you like to break it up into PO and your rate?

No, [ Rahul ]. We wouldn't want to get into that level because there will be also a pagination impact. It won't be just PO. But rates, rates, we have -- on a quarter, it is kind of maintained. Rates, we can give you on a metric tonnage that we have around 34,000 tonnage at an overall level.

34,000 per metric tonne.

That's right.

Yes.

The consol level.

The next question is from [ Satish ].

Like my question is -- depends on the previous question, which was asked. So as there is a COVID, so what is the next step that we are going to take going to online? So I came to know that HT Media is on the online business. So how far we are going to success on that? And what -- until now, like what is the success percentage we are expecting and how far we are on that?

[ Satish ], if I may take this question. This is Piyush [ Gupta ]. As you would be aware, 3 years ago, for the digital thing, and this is much before the pandemic, we had put our digital business in Digicontent Limited, which is in the business of digital media. I'm happy to report -- but that's not part of the growth that's a concern. But I'm happy to report that in the pandemic where most of the things are getting digitalized much sooner than had been anticipated, that business is showing much more resurgence in terms of growth percentage, and HT Media is investing aggressively behind the digital properties. So it's a very healthy growth, which we are seeing in the digital part of the businesses.

Yes. And my one more question is recently, we are aware that some of the transactions are being misled. So is there any expectations that in coming forward, is everything sorted out? Or in coming forward, is there anything to be sorted out?

No, [ Satish ], everything has been sorted out. It was a very detailed investigation led by a leading law firm, along with the leading accounting firms, which have been taken. All the filings have been done to the stock exchanges. I presented on Chart #17 that all the restatements and all the revisions, which are supposed to be taken to the FY '19-'20 financials, have already been conducted. This is the last of it. There is nothing coming out anytime soon. This -- all the investigation results have been baked into the financials now.

The next question is from [ Mehul Partok ].

My question is that -- yes. For the last many quarters, it has been very difficult to understand what is happening in the subsidiaries that is other than HMV and the Radio, your education and international. And there has been consistent booking of losses in these subsidiaries. Now how long will this bleeding continue? What is happening at the business level in these subsidiaries? And what is the Board-level thought in terms of future? Are they going to be sold off? Are there good businesses there that you are going to continue? Can you give some flavor of what is happening? And any future plans there?

Yes. That's a great question, [ Mehul ]. Let me try to attempt this. Apart from HMVL and Radio, which you have said that you have some visibility, most of the businesses are at various levels of incubation. Now there are not substantial investments which have gone behind these businesses, but businesses around content creation, businesses around international radio, these are some other businesses that HT Media has been incubating as a forward-looking revenue strategy. As one of your colleagues asked that Print looks like to be under a bit of pressure, so we've been on the journey of diversification. Now these businesses, the content studio businesses, which we started about 1.5 years ago, of course, has also been impacted a lot by COVID. But the whole point of putting that business was to go into a content platform, whereby on OTTs and various movie productions, et cetera, et cetera, HT can participate. SmartCast or the podcast is another such initiative, which has not taken a lot of capital, but it's a forward-looking business. So at this point in time, all I can tell you is that HT is trying these various initiatives so that we can kick start new revenue streams, which will start giving full benefit back to the shareholders. But at these times, most of them are subscale.

If I may add, yes, so basically, apart from the music, the Radio subsidiaries, which is Next Mediaworks and NRL, and there are no major subsidiaries bringing losses to the consol results. The education business that you referred to has been significantly scaled down, and it is hardly impacting any operating loss. HT overseas, yes, it's there. There we are -- we had incubated a few new businesses, and it has -- it does contribute a little bit to the loss, but it's not marginal. In stand-alone, we've taken some impairment on account of historical investments and on future cash flows, et cetera. But otherwise, there are no subsidiaries are apart from Radio, which is really doing -- contributing too much to the losses of the business. And I would just request Mr. Gulati -- Sandeep also wanted to add something. So Sandeep.

No. No. I have nothing more to explain. [indiscernible].

Yes. Okay. Okay.

Do these -- a follow-up question. And do these businesses have any market value? And if they're unrelated, can we not sell them off? [indiscernible].

So education -- yes. Education business was an area which had been a focus area, [ Mehul ], and we had 2 businesses in that. Over time, of course, we have not done well. And then we have -- and we had taken such similar decisions, so we have scaled it down significantly. And given whatever COVID impact has done on the operations, we may finally discontinue it. So that is where it is. In the overseas operations, yes, there is a potential future value, which will -- which can come in because a couple of the businesses are in incubation business. Scaling up has taken a little bit of time in the new environment, but we are hopeful. And then there is also certain investments that we had done as part of strategic partnerships, which also we are holding and which -- while current COVID-related issues have led to some markdown in that, in longer term, we should make -- get some money on that as well. And the Radio businesses, you are [indiscernible].

The next question is from [ VP Rajesh ].

My question is regarding your advertisement revenues. So the way you said that your circulation is back to 80% of pre-COVID level, how would you describe your ad revenue in terms of percentage of pre-COVID levels?

So [ Rajesh ], Piyush [indiscernible], if I may just comment, the 80% on a pre-COVID level I referred to was on the Hindi publication, which is Hindustan. The English publication are still at about 50%. The volumes have also recovered quite sharply as far as the Hindi is concerned. But as I was pointing out earlier, the big problem has been on the effective pricing because yields have been under pressure. As you can see, the newspapers have been continuously rationalizing pagination because there is not too much of advertising revenue at this point in time. But if KPMG report is to be believed that we believe a swift recovery post the vaccine, et cetera, might come through, and then the economy kick starts much more smartly. So we believe this is another 2 quarters impact that we'll see more profoundly on English than on Hindi. But after that, we should start coming to a normalized level. Some of the categories like FMCG, auto, et cetera, have already shown some kind of recovery in this festive season. We believe that will continue. But of course, then there are new norms around electric cars and various other regulatory things that the government is attempting there. So I think in next 2 quarters, at least the COVID impact should come out. And with the circulation going up smartly, we should start commanding certain yields, which were -- which we were before the pre COVID.

Yes. And overall, we will be at 60% of what we were, a little better than that. And Hindi is, of course, closer to 75%.

Okay. That's very helpful. My other question is what is the trend you are seeing in this quarter, given we are already through the first 2 months? Any commentary around that in terms of the ad revenue?

We typically don't share forward, so we'd like to just stay away from that at this point of time. I have given you broad indicators as to where we are.

Yes. However, just point it out, [ Rajesh ], just to point out, I think in this quarter, when you compare it on a Y-o-Y basis, there will be one festive season shift, which will play slightly sharply for the third quarter, and the results will be out because last year, the dates of Diwali were very different from a quarterly perspective than this year.

The next question is from [ Dharmesh Sangoi ].

Yes. Yes. Piyush, can you throw some update on this transaction, which we had entered on Mosaic Media acquisition?

Right. Yes, Anna, please go ahead.

So we have -- we will be closing the transactions soon, [ Dharmesh ].

So can you just throw some highlights on how it is going to help you in your performance? And what will be the upside of this? Sort of some estimates, some ballpark.

At this point of time, I wouldn't want to get there, [ Dharmesh ], but it is supposed to be [indiscernible] mint business and the presence in the financial space. And they have their data. They -- pretty much their business is -- there is no cannibalization. It's an incremental stream of revenue. But with our sales capabilities bring with their product capability, we believe that there will be potential building it up. So they have databases. They have subscription, and they have event. Those are the 3 critical elements of their business. And all 3, their product is very good, while we bring in capabilities of a larger proportion, and that is where [indiscernible], and that is [indiscernible] expect.

Okay. And what is the value of investment that we will be putting into the company? INR 6 crore is what you have mentioned.

[indiscernible]

The next question is from [ Sunil Jain ].

Yes. My question relates to the digital business. You said that 3 years back, you transferred the digital business to a separate company. So what is the growth path for digital business in this company? How we will be getting the benefit of digital business? Is there any revenue share agreement for digital business or something like that?

Look, [ Sunil ], if I may just kind of give you a historical perspective. At the time of the transaction, all the shareholders got a mirror shareholding in the digital company as well. So that's how the value of the digital company was shared with the shareholder. However, as far as this company is concerned, like various inorganic transactions that you're saying, we are talking about at Mosaic Media, we are trying to look at various properties, which kind of have a synergistic impact with our existing properties and will drive value for the shareholders at the HT Media Group. So we are very clear that digital has a good path. So we will see what can happen in the HT Media Group. As far as DC is concerned, we had already done the transaction 2 years ago, and all the shareholders got their shareholding. That's how the value sharing was done with the shareholders at that point.

With the content, I think that the website of the their Hindustan [indiscernible]. And so the content which gets accelerated at [ Bangalore ] or it's at only one level [indiscernible]?

Anna, do you like to take that, please?

Yes. Content, so there is a content which is on the newspaper, which is largely the reproduction of print, and then the other digital website. The entire content on the sharing arrangement is the HTML [indiscernible] have a content-sharing arrangement with this thing, so that all the digital news can kind of flow into the print paper. So that's how the content arrangement works. Otherwise, the digital news websites for us is it's within the HTDSL legal entity, and the monetization gets done by them. But as Piyush mentioned, we have other initiatives. As in the digital space [ with ], of course, the Shine business, which still resides with HT Media. Shine has grown -- I mean has shown [indiscernible] while it was in back in the early months of COVID. That's now shown pretty much coming back to in terms of revenue. We also have a couple of other initiatives that we are doing, both on the HT side and HT Media side into new businesses, which we are hoping to grow. And this is only the news side of things, which is currently with the other [indiscernible].

Yes. My question was simple, like the content, which means [indiscernible]...

So HTML -- Yes. [indiscernible]

Anna, your voice is breaking. You're not clear. You'll have to repeat yourself, please.

Hello? Is it better?

Yes.

So HT Media and Hindustan Media vendors pay content fees to HTDSL because HTDSL generates digital-first content, which is used also in the newspaper by these companies.

The next question is from Rushabh Sheth.

This is really a question on the corporate governance side. We've seen this several complaint coming, and of course, the company is going to address that. But generally, I mean, our sense has always been that the company is not doing enough on the corporate governance side in terms of capital allocation, in terms of some previous speaker asked a question on the new investments that you are making in Mosaic. I think this is the problem that we have always faced as investors, that the company has never given [ healthy ] -- in terms of what investments, what is the logic, what are they contributing. And you've seen almost INR 1,000 crores being blown up in various initiatives over the last 5 to 7 years by the company, whereas none of it has been distributed to the investors. So we're kind of surprised that what is the Board doing. And is there -- is the Board going to do something about this? Or this is just going to continue like this, that the company will keep making random investments in various properties and which will not yield any results, and at the end of the day, the investors -- the shareholders are not getting any return from it? I mean this is one of the companies which trades at significantly below the cash. I think it will be one of the few companies in the whole stock exchange, which place -- is trading maybe 50% or less than 50% of the net cash on balance sheet, and that's because of the poor corporate governance. So I just want to know what is the Board doing to address this issue? And this is a structural issue, which has been plaguing the company for now many years.

So Rushabh, Piyush [ Gupta ]. Thanks for joining the call. Look, Rushabh, you're using the word corporate governance very generically, and you're kind of linking it back to the capital allocation. I would just basically like to de-link the questions that you had in 2 parts. One is on the corporate governance, which is related to this whistleblower complaint, which come. As you can clearly sense -- clearly see that the company has done everything in the right manner, which had to be done, to address this particular thing. Now that all the filings are done, we've already kind of put it out in the public domain. As far as the capital allocation is concerned, look, Rushabh, I think we've discussed that in the past in person and on the calls as well. The company has been, for the longest time, seeing that the predominant revenue stream, which is on the Print revenues, have been under pressure and have been trying new revenue streams. Now you call that the company has been unlucky or you can always say that the company has had a bad strategy or a bad execution. But the reality is the company -- well, I wouldn't concur with that INR 1,000 crore number because that's -- when you say INR 1,000 crores, you're also counting into things like investment in Hindustan Media Ventures at that point in time, which was done before it went public and stuff like that. But a lot of successful properties have been created. Look at MIB. I mean this has happened in the last 8 to 10 years. It's still in the newspapers still. Radio happened. Now Radio for the last 1, 1.5 years even before COVID has had some issues of their own, and I'm not talking about corporate governance. I'm saying about the slowing down in the MSME space post the ILFs and the DHFL things, which happened sometime middle of last year. But there have been some good new revenue streams, which have been built. But of course, there have been branches on the education side, which have not really performed. Shine still continues to be a challenge, though it has broken even in this political quarter. The -- you actually have to give this much to the company that the company is putting in small businesses and trying to see if they can scale up. Now have we been very successful in most of them? Answer is no. But should we, therefore, give up these things? I think the answer still is a no. And the INR 1,000 crore number, I would seriously urge you to kind of look at granularly. It's nowhere close to that number. I hope that answers, Rushabh.

Yes. It answers the question. So my point is that the amount of money you have put into these ventures, at least some bit of it you could have distributed to the shareholders. Every time we raise this issue with you, you say the Board will take a decision. I don't understand the Board -- the CEO of the company doesn't come on the call to kind of explain that what the Board is thinking and why the Board is not increasing the dividends. I mean I can't really understand. This kind of [indiscernible] my mind that why can't the CEO come on the call. It's just once a quarter that the CEO needs to be on the call.

Rushabh, let me pick this up with you. We will -- so look, if there is any communication gap, we'll be more than happy to take it. If you want to have a chat with the CEO, I will definitely convey that back to him. As far as the dividend distribution thing is concerned, which we've discussed many a calls and many a time, is something that the Board, of course, is brief, as I have always been telling, I can again take it. But if it's out, having a conversation with the CEO, I'll definitely transmit that as well.

Yes. Please take it to the Board and to the CEO that there is a serious issue on this. And at least we, as shareholders, wants the Board and the CEO to look into it. And I hope that at least at some point of time, you start addressing it.

Sure, Rushabh.

The next question is from [ Anish Jobalia ].

Yes. My question is on the Hindi Print side. You mentioned that the yields are under pressure. So would you be able to quantify how much of the yields are down versus the normalized levels?

Anna, would you like to take this?

Actually, no, that will be a little difficult for us to quantify. We've -- we would -- we wouldn't be able to quantify...

But however, [ Anish ], this is Piyush [indiscernible], I'd still like to add, deals have to be seen in context of the relative pricing of the competitors in a given market. So for example, in a market like Patna, there is a certain competitive scenario. But because we've got a full position in that market, the yields have been reasonably well. However, given the political election, political advertising come at a different yield. But however, most of the UP local revenue has suffered much more because we are definitely not #1 in those markets. And when the yields come under pressure from the single biggest player, you have to react in the marketplace accordingly. So depending on market, they have been under pressure, but we wouldn't be able to give you one blended consolidated number. But deals, of course, have been under some pressure. Some were less, some were more.

And [indiscernible] this is an outcome of competitive pricing led by the largest player in those markets?

Yes. Yes. Of course, the largest players, so if we are the largest player in Bihar, Patna, we have been active participation in setting up the prices there. But in UP, it's the other way around.

It's also, [ Anish ], the demand/supply thing, right, as in there's a standard of -- there are only 2, 3 sectors, which are firing at this point of time. It's different from a scenario where pages are running full, and we will charge that extra for any additional square centimeter that you make us print, right? So there is a [indiscernible] impact also. But we -- based on our internal analysis, we believe that we are growing shares from a market value perspective when we have done our internal benchmark. So it's not that our pricing is -- we are suffering on pricing vis-à-vis the competitors. It is just that the entire industry level is low. And if at all, we have managed to improve our market share in that environment, and we have not lost anything on the market share perspective. But the pie per se has reduced. So everybody is taking up [indiscernible].

So once that [indiscernible] gets adjusted to the lower pricing, it is going to be a challenge to take it back to where it was. So do you think that the industry is going to operate at the [indiscernible] going forward over the next 2, 3 years?

We don't believe so because Print has always seen dynamic pricing, and customers understand that. So for example, during the [ hard ] times of our print, it is lower pricing. Festive times, it is 2, 3x of the average pricing. And so it is a -- it's like how it is in airlines. So there is a amount of dynamic pricing. So as volumes come back, as demand picks up, there will be a pickup in the pricing also.

But I think you mentioned that the volumes are already back to 100%. So...

For certain categories, and that is at a lower pricing. So we don't have pricing power at this point. I'll also request my colleague, Sandeep, to add to it. Yes.

Yes. Just to add into it, a couple of points. So as Anna already called out, from -- if you go back and think about overall value standpoint, we have gained both volume and value shares during the recent times. And that is visible from the results also, as you can see, all the published results as far as Hindi is concerned. The other piece which you asked about, pricing, whether it is going to be -- how the recovery is going to be, I think the way the whole industry has executed, not only us, is done in a little smarter way. It has not that the gross pricing has been brought down. The way the whole execution happened was through some promotional schemes, not that the gross pricing has come down. So I think path to recovery will be there, and that's getting adjusted as we speak, and it's already on that path. So if that helps answer a little bit better. So...

Do you think that this industry has been set back in terms of yields for a couple of quarters, say, 1 or 2 quarters or for at least [ 8 ] quarter only? I mean, directionally, how are you thinking about this?

So there will be pressure, clearly, and that's what we are seeing it, and it's evolving every single day as we continue to move forward. Good news is when you start getting volumes back, it just starts telling you that you are getting into a situation where you can take the recovery faster. So we'll have to see this over time. I wouldn't want to kind of speculate whether it is going to happen in 2 quarters or 8 quarters. Let just see, and as we come back next quarter, we will update you which way it's going.

The next question is from Depesh Kashyap.

Sir, is there any update on the royalty fees negotiation that were going on with the music companies?

Well, at this point in time, there is no update on that.

And sir, by when do you expect a solution to come?

Well, it's very -- it will be a conjecture at best if I do. I'll say the conversations are still going. If there will be something, we'll definitely let you know.

Understood. And sir, did you see any comeback in the political or the government ads in the -- during the Bihar elections? Because Bihar is a major market. So did you see any comeback in those ads?

Look, we definitely saw a flip in the Bihar elections, not as much as we would have liked, but even the state governments in the elections, what we analyzed in the trend, did not spend as much as they did in the elections 5 years ago. So was there a flip? Yes. Was it as much as it was 5 years ago? The answer is no.

Okay. Okay. And sir, also, there was a media article that the pagination during this festive [indiscernible] has increased multiple times for the Hindi medium -- or Hindi media. And especially like the pages that during the Diwali period were around [ 120-plus ] in many of the leading papers. So I just want to understand, like are you -- you've already talked about the ad volumes are back to normal, but is there a growth Y-o-Y or just a quarter-on-quarter improvement you're seeing?

Look, I think the festive had a very big role to play as far as this quarter is concerned. I also think that those 120-page paginations, et cetera, which some publications run in some of their editions, of course, we didn't have 120-page, but pagination is a mere factor of edit. We edit frozen at a certain columns. It depends upon what is the demand for the advertisement, and that decides the pagination. It was of course, better in the festive season, but after the festive season, we've seen a sharp decline in that space, which is a normal trend, which happens typically after Diwali.

Yes. Just to add, you are asking Y-o-Y, the volume trends, yes, it is a Y-o-Y reference, not a quarter-on-quarter.

And sir, is there a tried and true for both Hindi and English or only for Hindi?

Hindi is seeing better overall. English still has pressure. So Hindi is where the recovery is most.

The next question is from [ Karun Gera ].

Just 2 quick questions, which are follow-ups. One, you talked about the newsprint prices had been around 34,000 per tonne. How sustainable do you see them for the course of the year?

This -- for the course of the year, we should be able to sustain it because we have reasonable visibility to it through the end of the year.

Okay. So you're saying by the end of the year, it will still remain at that same level, right?

Or slightly lower.

Lower. Okay. That's good. That's good news. The second one was on the corporate governance that Piyush talked about. And when you go through the entire findings that have been put out by your partners there, they're talking about prebilling happening in the Radio space, and I know that has been corrected, and you guys have taken it up. Have we looked at it similarly from the Print point of view?

Yes. So that's a great question. I mean when it first happened, we, of course, you just [ scanned up ] across the organization. We've looked at it from a Print point of view as well. And I'm happy to say there are no such instances in any other part beside Print. I mean even in digital part, there are no such instances. However, if you look at the management response to the report that we have put online, we are currently taking multiple steps, and one of such steps is strengthening our revenue assurance exercise, which will further strengthen these areas. But it is totally, totally localized to a certain revenue stream back, too, in the Radio business, which constitutes about 2% to 3% of the total consolidated revenue. But we are still taking [ steps to further ] strengthen our revenue assurance practices within the organization. And we are in conversation with the auditors as well.

Next, we have a follow-up from [ Dharmesh Sangoi ].

Piyush, just following up on Rushabh's question on the investments your company has made. Can you throw some light on Pune market, which you invested some 3 years back? You invested heavily in Pune, then you invested very heavily in Mumbai, which were your upcoming 2 markets, apart from your North market, yes? Other than that, I don't see any other markets where English is operating. So what's happening in Pune and Mumbai? At least you have to throw some light now means what...

No. No, absolutely. Look, [ Dharmesh ], I'm not shying away from the question. I think I'll just sequence the question properly. I think Bombay, we invested much ahead of Pune. Bombay investment happened somewhere in 2008. If my memory serves me right, the commercial production started in 2009. Pune, as you've rightly said, is the investment which happened about 3 years ago. Now Mumbai is a substantial investment, where we set up a print location, and it's a full addition. As you know, Mumbai is one of the biggest English print markets in the country. So our investment has been substantial, and we've been playing, stepping to our competitor there for the longest time with a clear intent to reach about 80% to 90% of the competition. Of course, I'm taking pandemic out of the question. Pune, I would like to factually correct your question that we had not invested substantially at all. As a matter of fact, we did not set up any print location. We already had a sales office, which we beefed up by 4 people. And we had a local added staff because we had to cover the city. That was all the investment that we had done apart from the daily copies which are going, which are not very substantial. The whole idea of starting Pune was Mumbai and Pune are very contiguous places. And there's a lot of revenue, which basically come from the twin cities rather than for Mumbai alone or from Pune alone. The whole idea of having that sub-addition was to flank the Mumbai addition and serve the customers in Pune, who also have interest in one leg in Mumbai. Now of course, it is not -- we are not shying away from that investment. It's not a substantial investment, which comes into multiple hundreds of crores or anywhere close to it. But has it given us the rightful impact at this point in time? Answer is no. And the pandemic has definitely not helped. So it is not a substantial investment. It's the big point I'd like to make. But if it rectifies the going-in theses that Mumbai and Pune will be sold as a bundle because there are a lot of people who are interested in the twin cities.

So roughly, what would be our -- whatever investment in the form of losses or whatever you have invested? Because your competitor is very strong in that market. So what is the sort of investment you have from 2008 to date in Mumbai and, say, for Pune, for example?

Look, I think I -- we don't give out separate investment, but please understand, if you break down the investment in Mumbai, it will be basically in 2 or 3 big buckets. One will obviously be the land that you have to take for creating your printing location and your infra for house in the office, et cetera, which I don't think gets vanished, which only [ goes ] over time. The second is the loss funding that we've done. We have done loss funding for a brief period of 2 years, which was about 3 years ago. We had come down -- come to a breakeven number on our P&L as far as the operating EBITDA is concerned. But however, for the last 2 years, we've had a bit of a challenge. [ Our ] competitor has reacted very sharply in the city of Mumbai, seeing what we are also seeing. So it's primarily the loss funding. Apart from that, all the investment, which was in land and machinery, I don't think it's gone down substantially at all. As a matter of fact, would have only appreciated, but we haven't taken any valuation report for that.

That was the last question for today. With this, we come to the end of Q&A session. If you have any further queries, please reach out to the Investor Relations team. Our contact details are given in the investor presentation and are also mentioned on our website. I now hand over the call to Piyush for closing remarks.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for making the time. We are sorry we had to do it on a virtual platform. As you can see, because of COVID conditions, this is the second time that we are doing this template. We definitely hope to, at some time, see you in person, then we will be able to undertake some travel. I hope we have been able to answer most of your questions. And if there are some other questions that you might have, please feel free to reach out to Investor Relations [indiscernible], and we'll be more than happy to answer the same. With that, I wish you the best of festive time, and wishing you a very happy new year in advance. Look forward to seeing all of you in the next quarter. Thank you so much.