About 250 odd TV channels have decided to black out advertisements of the all Unitech Group companies because of non-payment of advertisement dues by the second largest realty player to the broadcasters for the last one year.
The members of Indian Broadcasting Foundation that include all channels of Zee group, Viacom 18 group, Star India, Multi Screen Media (with flagship channel Sony), NDTV group have collectively embargoed all Unitech companies, which implies that they wouldn?t telecast any of advertisements from any of the house companies of the real estate player which straddles across multiple sectors including retail and telecom.
?The amount of ad charges that Unitech owes to broadcasters has touched Rs 5 crore. That basically means Unitech hasn?t paid ad dues for the whole of last year. We have tried settling the matter through various ways but to no avail. We would have preferred a peaceful settlement but the company refuses to pay off the dues despite various reminders. Blocking ads of a company is an action of the last resort that broadcasters adopt,? said industry sources from the broadcasting sector.
Unitech, however refused to accept the non-payment charge upfront. ?The company and its agency FCCB Ulka have agreed to a certain payment schedule with IBF for the pending payment and the payments are being made/released as per the mutually agreed schedule,? said a Unitech spokesperson.
The company official also added that the company right now has no plans to use TV as the medium for advertising and that it is using only the print media for advertising. However, Unitech already has Rs 7,800 crore of debt on its books, which it aims to cut by at least Rs 1,000 crore by the end of this financial year. The larger part of repayment is expected to come from additional capital infusion into the company by promoters and by asset sales.
The company also has plans to raise Rs 1,600 crore in this financial year ending March 31, 2009, from the sale of non-core assets that includes the Saket office complex and four additional hotel properties located in Noida, Kolkata and Gurgaon, according to reports.
The real estate player plans to raise a minimum of Rs 900 crore by June from such asset sales. Unitech is selling its non-core business assets, that includes hotels and office space, to generate cash for debt repayment. ?Unitech has rescheduled all of its outstanding debt of Rs 7,800 crore and plans to reduce it by another Rs 900 crore within this month,? Sanjeev Chandra, managing director, Unitech said earlier this week.
Unitech?s promoters raised Rs 1,625 crore last April from the sale of shares to qualified institutional investors. The company?s board has also approved a plan to allow the promoters to infuse an additional Rs 1,000 crore through issue of warrants that are convertible into shares at a later date. Unitech Ltd has announced that a meeting of the board of directors of the company will be held on June 25, 2009 after which results for FY2009 would be announced.