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Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Update:Photon Kathaas: An ambitious venture in cinema industry


Photon Kathaas Productions, an entertainment company which makes movies in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, is tapping the London market with a public issue to raise £6 million.

Photon Kathaas, promoted by filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon, is hitting the London market on October 15. The Singapore-registered company will be listed on LSE's Alternative Investment Market or AIM. AIM is the London Stock Exchange's international market for smaller growing companies. Other Indian film companies listed on AIM include Bollywood giant Eros and animation house DQ Entertainment.

Gautham Menon holds 29% stake and his friend and music director, A R Rahman, holds 3% in Photon Kathaas, according to a company filing with AIM. Other shareholders include Venky Somasundaram (29%), Reshma Ghatala (29%), Ravi Venkatraman (5.5%) and Madan Pandy (4.5%).

Rahman is Photon Kathaas' creative adviser. Michael Rosenberg, a co-founder of TV-AM, Britain's first commercial breakfast TV station, is the chairman. Former Channel 4 executive Nathalie Schwarz is on the board and Menon is the chief creative officer (CCO) of Photon Kathaas. The issue is advised by investment banker Seymour Pierce.
Photon Kathaas hopes to tackle the problems by establishing a studio-driven business model to produce films more efficiently and exploit them across a range of different media