MUMBAI: K Sera Sera is planning a production pipeline of 20 movies and has announced an investment outlay of Rs 2.5 billion over the next two years.

The company will also foray into regional film production. "We have been looking at aggressively scaling up and have signed up big ticket directors. We plan to produce more than 20 films, which will be released by end-March 2008, at a total outlay in excess of Rs. 250 crores," said K Sera Sera managing director Parag Sanghavi.

The company has signed up a wide spectrum of directorial talent like David Dhawan, Abbas Mastan and Priyadarshan which it believes will give it a definite edge in the battle for market share in the Hindi feature films business. "We are in advanced stages of discussions to forge an alliance with yet another leading Bollywood director who has won immense critical and popular acclaim. We shall share details at an opportune time in the near future," Sanghavi revealed.

How does the company fund these projects? In the first phase, K Sera Sera will require Rs 1.1 billion, of which it has deployed Rs 550 million for the four movies which are on floor. Besides, it will use Rs 300 million from the money it raised through a follow-on public issue. The debt component will be around Rs 250-300 million.

K Sera Sera recently launched its first initiative of film distribution as a test case in Mumbai. Elaborating on the plans to release more films in the near future, Sanghavi said, "We released Malamaal Weekly with a total of 150-plus prints including digital prints in Mumbai. The film achieved a revenue of close to Rs 40 million, which was much more than what was achieved by mega starrers like Family and Zinda in the same time."

The company is planning to make 8-10 movies a year, scaling up from three movies it produced for the current fiscal. "We should see a topline growth of over 100 per cent year-on-year in FY 07 and 08 from the expected March 06 figures of Rs 700 million. Profitability too is expected to grow at the same rate," said Sanghvi.