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T Intermedia Capital (IMC), operator of free-to-air television station ANTV, expects to raise up to Rp 1.13 trillion (US$97 million) during an initial public offering (IPO) it plans to launch by the end of the month.

IMC, which is a part of politically wired tycoon Aburizal Bakrie'€™s media empire PT Visi Media Asia (VIVA), will float 588.2 million new shares or 15 percent of its enlarged capital to the public in the IPO.

The shares will be priced between Rp 1,380 and Rp 1,980, with its bookbuilding period scheduled to run until March 7. The company has appointed PT Ciptadana Securities and PT Sinarmas Sekuritas as underwriters for the offering.

With this price range, IMC hopes to raise from Rp 811.7 million to Rp 1.13 trillion, which will be used for the company'€™s capital expenditure (capex) to finance its expansion plans, president director Erick Thohir said.

Erick explained that 80 percent of the funds raised from the IPO would be used for capex, 10 percent would be used to pay off its debts to the holding company, while the remainder would be used for its working capital.

Out of the capex funds, 30 percent would be allocated to purchase land in East Jakarta or Bekasi, 25 percent would be to establish new studios, 15 percent would be to build a multiplexing network in Aceh and North Sumatra to support the government'€™s digital television programming, while the rest would be used to procure broadcasting equipment.

About 10 percent of the IPO funds would be used to pay off IMC'€™s debt to VIVA, which amounted to Rp 40.7 billion as of December.

Erick said that the company decided to go public only now, saying that it was the right moment to conduct the offering with the company recording a stronger performance, which is expected to further improve this year now that VIVA has secured the rights to air the 2014 VIVA World Cup tournament.

'€œWe decided to conduct the IPO right before the World Cup tournament commences so that investors can enjoy rising sales from the election and soccer matches. We hope this can provide good momentum for us to achieve sustainable business growth,'€ he said.

IMC booked a 36.2 percent increase in its first nine-months'€™ revenue to Rp 633.2 billion in 2013, compared to Rp 464.8 billion during the same period in 2012.

Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization grew by 36.8 percent to Rp 199.8 billion in January to September last year, compared to Rp 146 billion in the first nine months of 2012. IMC, however, recorded a 8 percent year-on-year drop in profits to Rp 89 billion as of September, compared to Rp 96.8 billion in 2012, which Erick attributed to '€œtax treatment to compensate losses the company generated during the early years of operations'€.

He said that the company expected to see its television advertising expenditure (ADEX) to rise above the industry'€™s ADEX annual growth of 15 percent, hoping to reach more than Rp 700 million this year.

Asjaya Indosurya Securities analyst William Surya Wijaya said that the company'€™s IPO price range was quite high and combined with the lower profits this could weaken the offering. '€œHowever, on the positive side they have no bank loans, and are going to pay off debts to their holding company from the IPO funds. They are also quite optimistic about their strong appeal to female and younger viewers,'€ he said.