RK Swamy Limited, among the top marketing communications agencies in India, has filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
The company, which is led by Chairman Srinivasan Swamy, is the largest Indian majority-owned integrated marketing services provider offering a single-window solution for creative, media, data analytics and market research services. Shekar Swamy is the Group CEO.
The initial public offering of the firm comprises a fresh issue aggregating up to Rs 215 crore and an offer for the sale of up to 8,700,000 equity shares by selling shareholders.
The offer for sale comprises up to 1,788,093 Equity Shares by Srinivasan K Swamy, Up to 1,788,093 Equity Shares by Narasimhan Krishnaswamy, up to 4,445,714 Equity Shares by Evanston Pioneer Fund L.P. and up to 678,100 Equity Shares by Prem Marketing Ventures LLP.
The funds raised through the IPO are proposed to be utilised for the funding of working capital, the funding of capital expenditure to be incurred for setting up a digital video content production studio, the funding of investment in IT infrastructure development of RK Swamy Limited, and the material subsidiaries, Hansa Research and Hansa Customer Equity, the funding of the setup of a new customer experience centres and computer-aided telephonic interview centres as well as for general corporate purposes, the company said in a note.
SBI Capital Markets Limited, IIFL Securities Limited and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors Limited are the Book Running Lead Managers to the issue.
Founded as RK Swamy Advertising Associates in 1973, the company got on board global agency network BBDO, initially as a non-equity partner in 1985. Later, it added BBDO as an equity partner in 1990.
BBDO Worldwide later took a majority stake in R K Swamy, which it bought back in 2009 when it set up a wholly owned subsidiary in the country — BBDO India. However, both companies continued to have minority interests in each other.
In July 2022, RK Swamy and BBDO, a top multinational agency, which is part of the Omnicom group, decided to separate ways after operating together for 37 years. The split took place for strategic reasons as the RK Swamy Hansa group wanted to bring its various business entities under one roof, the company said in 2022.
During FY2023, RK Swamy Limited, led by its Chairman Srinivasan Swamy, released over 818 creative campaigns on behalf of clients across various media outlets, handled over 97.69 terabytes of data and conducted over 2.37 million consumer interviews across quantitative, qualitative and telephonic surveys.
The solutions and offerings are serviced by over 2,391 employees spread across 12 offices and 12 field locations across 12 cities and in three business segments.
According to its website, the RK Swamy Hansa Group has offices spanning seven cities – Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata and Mumbai. Complementing this is a field network in 11 other cities. Hansa Marketing Services has US offices in Chicago, Illinois and Portland, Oregon.
RK Swamy Hansa Group, with a turnover of $100 million, has a long list of clients starting from the Government of India, LIC, RBI, SBI, Hawkins, Havells, Lloyd, TAFE, IndusInd bank, Shriram Group, Himalayas, MagicBricks, ONGC, Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, and others.
Recently, RK Swamy created government website for ‘Sengol’, which was placed in the new Parliament building.
This content was originally published here.
