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Amitabh hopes BIFR will clear new script

Sudha Menon

PUNE, March 7

HIS company might be down and out, but Bollywood's man of the millennium, Amitabh Bachchan, is not about to give up show time and is all geared to bounce back into action.

His now mired-in-controversy company, ABCL (Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd) has submitted a rehabilitation proposal to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) and is hopeful the proposal will get the green signal, put ting the company back on the recovery path.

``We have made a rehabilitation proposal to the BIFR and I am hopeful that we will be back in business in a few months from now by when the proposal will be approved by the board,'' Mr. Bachchan told Business Line.

Mr. Bachchan was in town recently as the special invitee of the Alfa Laval Managing Director, Mr. Satish Tandon, and had a special brief - to inject some feel-good sentiment into the employees of the company. Incidentally, Alfa Laval has just posted an almost 90 per cent increase in profits.

Does the angry, not-so-young-man feel he has burnt his fingers in business? ``Absolutely not. Corporatisation of the film industry is something that has to come about eventually and it is just that I tried my hand at it before its time has com e,'' Mr. Bachchan said.

``ABCL will continue to be in the entertainment business, making films, the first of which we expect to have on the floors six months from now, starring Abhishek Bachchan.''

The ageing superstar is still confident of his star value and brand equity: ``I will continue to leverage my image and popularity and act in ABCL's films, but my roles will be commensurate with my age. I would love to do films scrip ted with me in mind but those kinds of scripts are just not being made anymore.''

The Bade Miya of Bollywood said that he has lots more of acting left in him, with at least three films on the floors now, a couple of them with the likes of reigning heart-throbs, Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan.

ABCL has also recorded a few videos with him, but these will be released only after the company's film is released.

ABCL has been in the news for more than a year now with at least two creditors, Canara Bank and Allahabad Bank, moving the courts to appoint a court receiver to take over the superstar's bungalow and two flats in Mumbai, to recover their dues. The com pany was declared sick by the BIFR last July after its net worth was completely wiped out by accumulated losses. As against a net worth of Rs. 60.52 crores, the company had accumulated losses of Rs. 68.51 crores.