The money means we can now fund our dreams

The money means we can now fund our dreams
RAGHAV BHAL

MARCH 3: Forget the media hype of my being worth Rs 400 crore by virtue ofthe stock market value of my stake in TV18, or of Azim Premji being thesecond richest man in the world. It's all funny money. The moment we try toencash it, by selling our shares, it will disappear!

What TV18's market cap, and my `wealth' mean is different, and veryimportant. What it actually is, is a realisation by the market that ourbusiness model of a Business Channel is a viable one, and that if we havethe plans, the market will definitely fund them. Conversely, if we are notable to live up to what the investors are expecting from us of becoming afully integrated media company and if we don't realise the ambitionsquickly, the very same `wealth' or market cap, will disappear as fast as itcame.

I'm not even trying to compare myself with Premji, but what does his`second-richest' man status mean? It means that the market is saying, if youhave the right ideas and the ability to make it happen, we're willing tofund your ambition and make you the second-richest man in the world in thetrue sense of the term. This `wealth' is not wealth in the conventionalsense of money, it's wealth as in the ability to gather fresh funds, and fora well-defined business plan.

And it is because of this realisation, that our new-found status hasn'tchanged things for any of us, the 30-crorepatis, at TV18 in any materialsense. Okay, we've all got new cars finally and, because of my limp, I'vegone and bought myself a golf cart so I can do the 18 holes! I'm an avidgolfer, but had a 20-year old set, so I've gone and bought a new one.

The money certainly means a great sense of security, that we're no longerbroke. We've had to give up on ideas like getting into FM radio in the past,for instance, since we didn't have the money. Today, clearly, we don't havethat problem. Since, in all our 60 months of existence, we've never delayedsalaries except once for 7 days, I've been heavily in debt. I once asked myparents, who are very middle class, to break a fixed deposit of Rs 7 lakh sothat I could pay salaries all this is now in the past. Today, with thismoney, we'll now be able to realise our dreams. From being a Rs 40 crorefirm, we can realistically look at growing to Rs 500 crore. This sounds verycliched, but the real lesson that I learnt, that all of us learnt, throughall the hard times, when we were down to zero working capital, was just tokeep your head above the water, to just go on. I look at this `wealth' witha great deal of gratitude, that the market has finally recognised that wecan do it. Our bet has come good, and there's money on the table for biggerbets.

Raghav Bahl heads TV18, which makes business programmes for TV channels