Mukta Arts' deal with Tips Industries key growth driver in Q4, strong BO revenues help multiplex arm

Media company Mukta Arts announced its fourth quarter results for FY19 on Tuesday and reported consolidated net profit of Rs 3.88 crore from Rs 1.49 crore in 2018. The company’s EBITDA for the year grew to Rs 14 crore from Rs 11 crore in 2018.

The multiplex arm of the company Mukta A2 Cinemas maintained the momentum in the fourth quarter after posting strong revenues in the third quarter of FY19.

The subsidiaries in the cinema space, operating under the Mukta A2 brand in India and Bahrain, posted a consolidated turnover of Rs 104 crore, up 35 percent from Rs 77 crore in 2018.

Screen count grew from 55 in 2018 to 64 this year.

Talking to Moneycontrol about Mukta A2 Cinemas’ (subsidiary into exhibition business) performance in the fourth quarter of FY19, Rahul Puri, Managing Director, Mukta Arts, said, “The fourth quarter has been good because cinema has had a fairly good run. Box office from January to March helped the numbers.”

The fourth quarter saw successful ventures like Kesari, URI, Gully Boy, Total Dhamaal and Simmba. Also, the success of medium and small films implies that box office growth is slowly shifting its dependence on low and mid budget content-driven movies over high-budget ones.

He also said it has been a while that the standalone company has been profitable. “The Bahrain subsidiary had lost money last year but even that has stood around and is profitable. There is a strong base to go in the next couple of years,” he added.

The company has six screens in Bahrain.

Puri said the company is in line with its target of taking the total screen count to 80-85 by December.

For FY19, Mukta A2 Cinemas reported 48,50,000 admits. The company earned Rs 2.60 crore approximately in ad revenues.

“We have consistently shown growth in F&B that has gone up in the quarter. We opened a couple of new theatres and the good run of films at the box office added to better admits and led to better advertising,” said Puri.

The company continues to bet big on the southern Indian market. “The South is an area of growth, so we are looking for new properties in Bengaluru and Chennai. It will come in next year,” said Puri.

For the year ahead, Puri is betting big on Salman Khan-starrer Bharat that will hit theatres this Eid. We are expecting it to be really big, said Puri.

He added that “a sizeable chunk of rights coming through will give a good base to grow from. In addition, we have got a number of theatre launches and a couple of new projects in the pipeline”.

He also said for Mukta Arts, one of the key drivers was the company’s deal with Tips. Mukta Arts recently concluded a deal with Tips Industries Limited for extension of all audio and music video rights for royalty.