Indian banking conglomerate The Hinduja Group, which has interests in Bollywood production, has until the end of the month to finalise its rescue of troubled Belgian outside broadcast group Alfacam. In a recent memorandum of understanding, both parties agreed to enter exclusive negotiations which would see the Mumbai-based firm pay off Alfacam’s debt of around €24m and invest another €6m in capital. According to some reports, Hinduja may look to shoot Bollywood movies at Alfacam’s TV studios, taking advantage of favourable tax breaks in Belgium for inward film production investment. Hinduja could also support Alfacam in deepening its business in India, the Middle East and South East Asia. One of the primary reasons that Alfacam got into debt and was forced to call in the administrator last September was that it had overstretched its finances with an ambitious expansion in India and Brazil. It had lost 75% of its market value since the start of 2012. The same fate is unlikely to befall UK outside broadcast facilities companies. Alfacam accumulated a vast fleet of vehicles and flypacks to operate a rental-style model that came unstuck at the end of 2012. While it had the spare capacity to dominate the supply of mobile facilities to international sports events like the FIFA World Cup, Olympics and UEFA Championships, it had less success in winning the bread and butter year-round work. Hinduja Group is a global investment and banking group with a diversified portfolio of holdings across the manufacturing services and banking sectors, as well as owning some cable networks and other media related assets, and is active in film production. Adrian Pennington www.alfacamgroup.com
