CHETAN BHAGAT TURNS OVER A NEW LEAF

Shraddha Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor’s latest release Half Girlfriend collected ~32.04 crore at the box office over the weekend. While critics slammed the “half story and half acting”, trade analyst Taran Adarsh, who tweeted the collection figures, called it a “good weekend” for the movie, based on novelist Chetan Bhagat’s book of the same name.

Even if it is half the commercial success that was projected, Half Girlfriend is likely to bring first bucks from a new revenue stream for a happening start-up.

Title credits of Half Girlfriend begin with “Chetan Bhagat Entertainment Pvt Ltd presents...” Bhagat himself is listed as a producer along with veterans Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor.

The company was floated by the novelist and wife Anusha Suryanarayanan in 2009, with a modest capital of ~1 lakh. Riding primarily on Bhagat’s brand equity and his creative abilities, the one-man show has now grown into an enterprise with a net worth of about ~8 crore. Its net profits ranged between ~1 crore and ~2.5 crore in the past few years.

Though the objects of the company include “to produce, project, exhibit, broadcast, distribute and transmit the Motion Picture in all languages theatrically and non-theatrically”, so far, 99 per cent of its revenues have come from television, talk shows and brand promotions.

In 2015-16, the company booked a profit of ~1.07 crore, less than half the previous year when it reported earnings worth ~2.5 crore. In 2015-16, its revenue from operations stood at ~1.35 crore against ~2.27 crore in 2014-15. Of the ~1.35 crore, television and talk shows accounted for ~1.29 crore. With brand promotion earnings of ~1.94 crore, total operating revenue in 2014-15 stood at ~4.21 crore.

The bounce in net profit in 2014-15 probably came on the back of Chetan Bhagat Motivation Series. Bhagat would deliver speeches to audience as small as 25 to as big as 15,000. According to Bhagat’s website, the novelist has delivered around 300 talks in 75 cities.