Sonata Invst picks up 5% stake in Saregama

Sonata Investments has picked up a shade over 5 per cent stake in the RPG Enterprises-controlled music company Saregama India through open market purchase.

Sources in the RPG Enterprises said Sonata Investments has purchased 492,000 equity shares, representing a 5.27 per cent stake in Saregama India.

The corporate identity of Sonata remained unknown. Market sources speculate that the firm may be linked with Reliance Capital. However, no Reliance Capital official could be contacted for comments.

Market sources said Reliance Capital bought over 5 per cent stake of Saragama India from the EMI group nearly a month ago in the open market when the Brirish company sold out its entire 7.71 per cent stake to put the end of a century-old relationship with Saregama to an end. The buyers of the remaining shares were a mutual fund and Mumbai-based stock broker.

Gramophone Company of India, Saragama India's earlier avataar, was established as the first overseas Indian branch of the London-based Electrical & Musical Industries Limited (now, EMI) in 1901.

Although the Kolkata-based RPG Enterprises took over Gramophone Company of India in 1985 from EMI, the latter preferred to continue with a token equity partnership in the music company.

The first recording at Saregama took place a year after it was established as an Indian branch of EMI by recording the voice of the famous dancing star of Kolkata, Gauhar Jan.

In 1910, Gramophone Company applied to register the 'His Master's Voice' picture together with the words "His Master's Voice' as a trademark. It has recorded the first song in an Indian film, Alam Ara, in 1931. In 1978, Saregama started manufacturing music cassettes in its Dum Dum factory.

The company has now turned around and started making profits from April 2004. The profits for the six months for April - September 2004 were Rs 1.92 crore (Rs 19.2 million).

The turnaround was possible after Saregama initiated a conscious strategy to derisk its entire business model. New initiatives were implemented for exploitation of the company's valuable catalogue through introductions of premium products.

Growing business of home video was brought under focus through tie-ups with new overseas studios while new acquisitions of film music were done selectively either at small cost or on revenue sharing basis.