A WORD of advice, says the charmingly chatty Ronnie Screwvala on the way up in
the lift. “In India we don’t like the word Bollywood that much.” The term —
a western conflation of Hollywood and Bombay, where the Indian film industry
is based — is a bit patronising.
I think of promising not to make a song-and-dance about it, but I am too slow.
Screwvala, 50, one of India’s biggest film-makers, is already opening the
door of his hotel apartment. With his black silk shirt, handsome fleshy
features and elegantly coiffed hair, he looks like Mumbai’s answer to
Engelbert Humperdinck.
Although he started as an actor, he is now India’s best-known media
entrepreneur — running the Mumbai-based UTV, which has interests in films,
television, cartoons and computer games and is swiftly going global.
Screwvala is in London to promote the India Media Fund, which will float on
London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in the next fortnight. It plans
to offer international investors controlled access to India’s fast-growing
media market. He is its “adviser”.
If that wasn’t enough, Screwvala is also here to launch a new film, the
Namesake, from Monsoon Wedding director Mira Nair. And he is plugging
another film called Metro, starring Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa
Shetty.
Cashing in while she’s hot? He grins. “She’s very talented. It’s a very nice
movie.”
And did I mention he recently bought a computer-gaming company in west
Lon-don? Multi-tasking is in the Screwvala DNA — though perhaps it has found
its full expression only recently. “My surname is Parsi,” he says. “Vala is
like wallah; it’s what you did. Screwvala. We just turned the screws.”
Sitting in his plush apartment near Westminster, Screwvala is very easy
company, with little of the arrogance and bluster associated with movie
moguls.
He speaks quiet, perfect English, and has eyes for opportunities beyond India
— he sent his only daughter to boarding school in Britain. She is now
studying at UCLA in California. He also has long-standing links to western
media firms hungry to get into the Indian market — hence the interest of
those behind the India Media Fund in signing him up as chairman of their
advisory board.
UTV was part-owned by News Corporation, owner of The Sunday Times, for 10
years from 1995. Last year, after buying back UTV’s independence, Screwvala
sold a 15% stake to Walt Disney for $16m (£8.2m). He also sold it his Indian
teenagers’ channel, Hungama, for $31m.
That gives him plenty of experience of the demands made by western investors.
In return, he is looking to do deals at the global media table, especially
in Hollywood.
UTV recently partnered Fox in backing the new Chris Rock movie I Thought I
Loved My Wife, which opened in America last week. It has also agreed a
two-film deal with actor Will Smith, and taken the plunge to back the next
movie from Sixth Sense director M Night Shyamalan.
But if he is busy building a film empire abroad, how can he find the time to
advise the India Media Fund? And how closely will it interlock with UTV’s
interests at home?
“I know I am not the usual suspect for this kind of thing, especially as I am
an entrepreneur running my own business, but the fund has a better chance of
working if it has people on the ground to evaluate things more minutely,” he
says.
“And our industry in India has substantially grown on debt, not equity — the
more equity that flows in, the more new opportunities that will bring.”
The fund, chaired by Roger Parry, chairman of Johnstone Press and YouGov, aims
to invest £75m in anything from broadcast channels and content providers to
new multiplex chains in India.
It is the brainchild of Andrew Carnegie, a former News Corp executive who once
ran Star TV in India and sat on UTV’s board. He describes Screwvala as one
of the most impressive figures in Indian media. “His strength is that he
understands how western business works,” says Carnegie. “If you want to
invest in the Indian media sector, you need to ally that capital with
on-the-ground media operating know-how. Without that, you would find it
difficult.”
Screwvala says the key will be finding the right opportunities. With India’s
middle class growing rapidly, demand for media is surging, but some of the
country’s media assets are already overvalued. Indian businesses also have a
reputation for taking western capital but denying investors a say in how a
business is run.
What will the fund pick? “High on our list would be broadcasting start-ups
with strong content expertise,” says Screwvala. “And there are specialised
bits of the movie industry that could be interesting.”
He also predicts that “infrastructure” investments — especially in multiplex
cinemas, of which there are few — might pay off, too. He wouldn’t want to
own multiplexes inside UTV, he adds, but as a five-year investment, exiting
profitably when the sector consolidates, they could be a winner.
Which begs the question, just how much of the India Media Fund will be pocket
money for UTV to spend? None, says Carnegie, though some investors have told
him they would like to have access to Screwvala’s projects.
Parry says the fund’s AIM listing will guarantee that its corporate governance
is good, but agrees that co-investing with Screwvala is a possibility. “If
Ronnie is interested in what looks like a winner, and wants to put in some
of his own money, we won’t rule it out,” says Parry.
As for how much time Screwvala can devote to advising the fund, the UTV boss
jokes that it will probably be “11.30pm to 1.30am” — often his most
productive bit of the day, when he has a chance to catch up with paperwork
after dinner.
That hyper-intense working style has long been his trademark.
Screwvala was born to a Mumbai business family — his father ran the Indian
subsidiary of a British firm and his elder brother went on to work for
Standard Chartered bank. He says he knew he wanted “to get into business” at
an early age.
But after a brief stint as an advertising copywriter, he actually started in
front of the camera, hosting game shows at the age of 21 — a career move he
puts down to his early interest in amateur theatre. “I used to spend
weekends acting,” he says.
He still carries that actor’s confidence, so useful in reassuring others over
business deals. He used it early on, borrowing money to buy two old
toothbrush-making machines from Addis in Britain — spotted while on a
factory visit with his father — shipping them back to India, and starting
his first manufacturing business. He only sold the toothbrush company two
years ago. You suspect he has lots of little sidelines like that.
“I don’t get bored easily, but I do like to be multi-faceted,” he says. “I am
good at incubating something, growing it, setting a vision to it, and then
getting a team to run it.”
He started his own cable-TV company when India had only one terrestrial
channel. “I had to sell people infra-red handsets — they had never had to
change channel before,” he says.
Later he set up UTV, standing for United Television. The dull corporate name
was intentional, he wanted it to sound big.
And big it has become — by Indian standards — with a public listing and
revenues of $75m in 2006. It has been less successful in television than it
has been at challenging the established dynasties that run India’s prolific
movie industry.
Screwvala has introduced an American-style studio system with tighter scripts,
less song-and-dance and better budgeting, and you sense that movies are
where his focus now lies. He leaves the expansion of UTV’s television
division to his second wife, Zarina, founder of Hungama.
This year he claims he will be India’s biggest movie maker, “both in
numbers of films and in revenues”.
He is also gaining international recognition. His film Rang De Basanti was
nominated for a Bafta award for best foreign film last month.
But he wants more crossover hits, so he can bring big projects back to India,
where production costs are lower. He is now looking for tie-ups with
Britain’s production companies. He already has a film shooting here about an
Indian football team in Southall.
Another Bend It Like Beckham? He beams with excitement at the thought.
Will he get similarly excited about the India Media Fund?
Of course, he says. “I can’t comment on the risk or returns, but maybe I can
offer one or two key pointers to the fund that will help give an investment
a different trajectory.”
Then it’s a wrap — the photographer’s waiting — and we have to leave it at
that.
RONNIE SCREWVALA’S WORKING DAY
THE UTV chief executive wakes after 7am at his apartment in Carmichael Road,
south Mumbai. “I leave for work at 8.45am,” says Ronnie Screwvala, “so it is
an hour on the treadmill, making calls with a headset. Then I get picked up
by my driver.”
His office is seven minutes’ drive away. “There is a lot of work going on both
in India and overseas, so a lot of my time is spent on the phone there.”
Otherwise he will meet investors or look at potential acquisitions.
He rarely lunches out. He goes home at 9pm, has dinner and then works till
1.30am.
VITAL STATISTICS
Born: September 8, 1956
Marital status: married twice, with one daughter
School: Cathedral School, Mumbai
University: Sydenham College, Mumbai
First job: copywriter, ad agency
Salary: $140,000 plus a lot more in dividends
Home: Mumbai
Car: grey Honda Accord
Favourite book: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Music: Mozart
Last holiday: Sydney
DOWNTIME
RONNIE SCREWVALA relaxes by swimming. “There’s a very nice club two minutes
from home, so I saunter down there.”
He also likes to watch movies at home. “I have a good home cinema system,
though my wife is not too crazy about the loud sound.”
Otherwise he enjoys meeting up with friends — “that’s a rare occasion because
of my work”. He travels away from home 15 days a month.
“Occasionally to destress, I will go to Fort Aguada, a Taj hotel in Goa. At my
age one gets into a habit; there is a particular room I like, with a
particular view. Sometimes I am obsessive.”
Ronnie Screwvala has indeed helped changed the face of Indian entertainment industry. For example, the traditional set up in Bollywood or the Indian movie business has been controlled by slush money and families. There is a new movement, a sort of corporatisation of the entire set up, from funding to distribution to promotion, and Ronnie's company UTV is playing a lead role in bringing corporate values and much needed transparency to the Indian movie business.
His next venture- taking, a shot at Hollywood should provide enough material for a masala pot-boiler. One of the rare people who understand entertainment and the business of entertainment equally well.
Punit Modhgil
Punit Modhgil, Maida Vale, London