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T Visi Media Asia (VIVA), the media group belonging to tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, is considering selling 10 percent shares of its subsidiary Intermedia Capital (IMC) in a private placement, in the hope of raising US$105 million to refinance its debts.

VIVA vice president director Robertus Bismarka on Thursday said that the company was looking for ways to restructure its debt to the Singapore-chapter of Swiss bank Credit Suisse. He added that the media firm would likely resort to both private placement and bond issuances.

Robertus said the company might carry out the private placement before offering the bonds to adjust to VIVA'€™s plan to hold an overseas road show.

'€œWe are targeting foreign investors for private placement. We have scheduled a road show to several European and Asian countries in October,'€ he explained.

The shares to be allotted are those of IMC, the operator of free-to-air television station ANTV.

Robertus said VIVA opted to release 10 percent of IMC shares as the subsidiary still had a lot of opportunities in the fund-raising plan, given that VIVA still dominated ownership in the newly-listed company.

VIVA holds about a 90 percent stake in IMC, while the public owns 10 percent of the shares.

By releasing 10 percent of IMC shares, Robertus said VIVA hoped to pool $105 million to pay off almost half of its remaining debt to Credit Suisse.

VIVA entered into a $230 million credit agreement with Credit Suisse in November last year. The proceeds of the loan were used to repay its outstanding loans, boost its liquidity, and for its working capital and capital expenditure (capex).

VIVA had previously planned to pay off some of the debt from the funds raised in IMC'€™s initial public offering (IPO) in April, but the money generated from the subsidiary'€™s public debut was far below the holding company'€™s expectations.

VIVA targeted to earn a maximum Rp 1.13 trillion ($109.58 million) from the public offering, of which 10 percent had been allocated to refinance its loans, but it ended up reaping only Rp 541.17 billion.

Due to the unsatisfying IPO result, VIVA must explore other potential avenues to refinance the remaining $220 million debt. Such avenues include issuing bonds and seeking domestic loans for refinancing, besides the private placement.

Robertus explained that the media firm was still studying the bond issuance plan, and would wait for better market conditions to execute the plan.

'€œWe, however, want our new loans to be in rupiah and not in US dollar to avoid currency volatility. We are still studying the available options to better suit the market, be it from domestic bank loans or bonds,'€ he explained.

Viva has prepared Rp 900 billion for capex this year, a significant increase compared to Rp 400 billion last year.

The capex would be used to finance the company in building new television studios and developing its online streaming platform VIVALL and pay television service VIVA+.

VIVALL was launched in May and has generated about 600,000 subscribers with 1.3 million screen views from Android and iOS.