Going Public

South Asia's largest specialty publishing house, the Rs 58-crore CyberMedia
India Ltd, parent of Dataquest, has announced that it will float an initial
public offering (IPO) by end-November 2004 to raise Rs 17 crore to fund its
global expansion plans. CyberMedia, which was established in 1982, is targeting
a turnover of Rs 75 crore in the current fiscal and has also initiated multiple
strategies to expand globally in the knowledge, media and services domain.

CyberMedia CMD Pradeep Gupta announced that the shares, of Rs 10 each, would
be offered in the price band of Rs 50-60, and the proceeds would be used to take
the company's products global. "While we are committed to providing world
class media and media services products in the domestic market, we have started
looking outwards to tap the global market-thereby becoming the first Indian
media house to launch global publications," Gupta said.

While the company already has plans to launch its biotechnology magazine,
BioSpectrum, from Singapore soon, it is also planning to launch Global
Outsourcing, a magazine aimed at worldwide buyers of BPO services. CyberMedia
has also tied up with McGraw-Hill, publishers of BusinessWeek, to launch the
India edition, and is waiting for the government of India permission for the
same.

Gupta further said that CyberMedia is planning to scale up the operations of
CyberMedia Services, its content and publishing BPO services arm, with a view to
capturing the US and European markets. The company, which presently has 70
people in its BPO operation, has already set up a 200-seat facility to meet its
expansion plans.

The company is looking at diluting 28% of the paid-up capital in the market
through the IPO, thereby reducing the promoters' stake from the current 58% to
49%. According to Gupta, the company plans to approach market regulator SEBI
with a draft prospectus soon and has already appointed Khandawala Securities as
lead managers for the issue.

CyberMedia's media business includes its print titles in the infotech,
telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas: Dataquest, PCQuest,
Voice&Data, BioSpectrum, Living Digital, DQ Channels India, DQ Week (Chennai,
Delhi and Mumbai editions). The group also has an end-to-end media value chain
including the Internet, events and television. Its technology portal CIOL.com is
India's largest technology website and includes online editions of all
CyberMedia titles. CyberMedia Events, the region's largest organizer of IT
events, conducts over 100 events every year like Bangalore IT.com, IT Kerala and
Hi-Tech Pune, among others. CyberMedia TV develops knowledge-oriented general
interest programs on mass channels.

The group's media services include market research (IDC India, the leading
IT and telecom research company in the region and CyberMedia Research, which
focuses on the media and entertainment sectors), content outsourcing (CyberMedia
Services), multimedia and gaming (Cyber MultiMedia, the multimedia and gaming
development and distribution company), and media education (the School of
Convergence, for content creators and media managers).

CyberMedia News Service