Mid-Day Multimedia is attempting to leverage its strength of content production and its formidable brand. It is aiming to evolve as a Mumbai oriented content provider. With its entry into multimedia, the company will garner media space on the Internet, outdoor, print and radio. It also plans to provide value-added services through integrating the proposed GIS, Telephone Information Services (TIS) and other enabling services.

Although the company has existing strengths and some encouraging long term plans there are certain areas of concern. The obvious one is the issue of competition. In the publishing business, it could face stiff competition in the eveninger segment of the print media. The presence of a formidable competitor in the form of The Times of India cannot rule out the fact that any move by them into this slot could affect ad rates. Investments being made in new areas will have a long pay back period.

The IPO is being offered at a stiff valuation of 19 times. Pricing around Rs 45-55 would have been reasonable which gives it a multiple of 13-15 times. Although the company's plans are noteworthy and should be monitored closely, the pricing seems stretched.

MML's focus is on Mumbai and providing information about this city. The business model has the 4 business divisions - publishing, outdoor advertising business, interactive/enabling and radio. Revenue streams are from subscription, commerce, promotional spend and advertisements.

Main objective of the IPO is to invest in the growth of the publishing business, expand the outdoor business, invest in Internet-related business, invest in GIS mapping services and logistics infrastructure, fund long term working capital requirements and repay unsecured interest free loan taken from promoters.

IPO is to fund the expansion project (total outlay of Rs 657.7 Mn). Of this Rs 230 mn will be invested in the publishing business, where it plans to expand its existing infrastructure and expand