Mukta Arts, which hit a 52-week low of Rs 64.35 as recently as 8 January 2003, saw fortunes pick up on Wednesday after announcing the sale of audio and music rights of its forthcoming film.

The scrip of the film production company jumped up 4% to Rs 67.15 on BSE in afternoon trade. It had hit a high of Rs 67.90 and a low of Rs 64.60, earlier. Around 43,900 MAL shares were traded on BSE so far.

MAL on Wednesday said that it has entered into an agreement with Super Cassette Industries (Mumbai) for sale of audio and music rights of its film 'Ek Aur Ek Gyarah' for an amount of Rs 2 crore by way of minimum guarantee as royalty for a period of 15 years. "Rs 2 crore is a good sum considering there are only flops in the music market these days," a dealer with a local brokerage said.

Ek aur Ek Gyara is a forthcoming film from the MAL stable. The film starring Sanjay Dutt and Govinda is a medium-budget movie directed by David Dhawan.

For the quarter ended 30 September 2002, MAL's net profit plunged sharply as the company did not have any production during the period while in the same quarter in the previous year it released the movie Yaadein.

MAL's net profit plunged 63.1% in September 2002 quarter to Rs 1.07 crore as compared to Rs 2.90 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Total income fell by 86.47% to Rs 3.09 crore, against Rs 22.80 crore during the same period.

Earlier, MAL sold home video rights of 11 movies to Shemaroo Video in September 2002 for Rs 2.5 crore.

MAL has extended its current accounting year up to 31 March 2003, and in future will follow the financial year (April-March) as its accounting year compared to the earlier practice of following the calendar year.

MAL has made a foray into television software as part of its overall strategy to de-risk the business model that focussed on blockbuster films alone.

MAL is promoted by renowned film producer Subhash Ghai