Filmmaker Subhash Ghai’s Mukta Arts has decided to transfer its cinema division to wholly owned subsidiary Mukta A2 Cinemas. Speaking to BTVi , Mukta Arts MD Rahul Puri says the move will help the firm expand in movies, which is going to be the focus area over the next couple of years. Mukta Arts is also looking at digital production and television content, which is increasingly converging with video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, he said. Excerpts:

What is the rationale behind this revamp?

The main rationale behind this revamp is that we want to provide more clarity to the markets in terms of where the cinema business is and how it is looked at. The idea was: we wanted to move all the cinema assets into a separate wholly owned subsidiary, and everybody can get a clear picture of how that business is performing. I think the other advantage is that we get a whole new balance sheet to use, expand and continue our growth in that area because that is going to be our key focus area over the next couple of years.

Apart from the accounting practices, what exactly is Mukta Arts concerned about right now? Now that the cinema distribution business is separated, what exactly will Mukta Arts focus on going forward?

Mukta Arts as a company will continue to focus on what it has historically been focussing on — film production and distribution. It has assets which look at the digital production and television content, which is increasingly converging with VOD platforms. So Mukta will be looking at production in all type of contents, and will be stepping out the cinema assets into separate companies so that the business can focus solely on cinema activities.

What is the current size of your exhibition business? How much is it contributing to the revenue and what are the plans going forward?

On an annual basis, our cinema business is now almost ₹100 crore in terms of revenue or in terms of top-line. We have 17 properties and 50 screens. By this time next year, we want to be 100 screens.

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