Sunshine Pictures makes films — The Kerala Story among them — and its IPO opened today. Before the grievance registrar, before the risk factors, look at just two lines from its own FY26 numbers from the RHP: - Profit after tax, FY26 Rs 40.02 cr - Operating cash flow, FY26 − Rs 33.21 cr One line says the company made money. The other says the money never showed up. Both are from the same annual report.
Sunshine Pictures IPO
The company has Rs 45 lakh in the bank. It's asking us for Rs 282 crore.
Sunshine Pictures makes films — The Kerala Story is among them — and its IPO opened today.
Before the grievance registrar, before the risk factors, look at just two lines from its own FY26 numbers:
Profit after tax: Rs 40.02 crore
Cash from operations: minus Rs 33.21 crore
One line says the company made money, and another says the money never showed up. Both are from the same annual report.
Where the profit actually is
Not in the bank — in other people's pockets. Receivables sit at Rs 66.51 crore, 89% of FY26 revenue. Three years of accounts, and the provision for bad debts on that pile is zero. Add Rs 75.06 crore of inventory — unreleased content, essentially finished films waiting to earn — and that's 101% of revenue sitting on shelves.
Revenue on paper. Cash nowhere close.
Now read what the IPO is actually for
Strip away the language and there's one real use of funds: Rs 112.5 crore for working capital. The RHP itself says this figure hasn't been appraised by any bank or financial institution.
Meanwhile, working capital has already swollen to Rs 126.5 crore, 170% of FY26 revenue. The company's own FY27 projection pushes that to Rs 320 crore; the plan is to fund the increase with more receivables and more inventory. The same two things that ate FY26's cash.
Do the division yourself: Rs 112.5 crore against Rs 48 lakh of actual cash on hand as of March 31, 2026, is a 233x ask.
And while investors are asked to plug that hole, promoters Vipul and Shefali Shah are selling Rs 103.9–109.3 crore of their own shares in the same offer.
The company's defence — and why it doesn't quite hold
Management's case: collections were simply pending at year-end, and the big titles release in FY27. Fair, except even the FY26 export revenue of Rs 10.01 crore — a separate, smaller pot — was fully uncollected at year-end too. The pattern isn't one bad quarter. It's a habit.
So what's this, really?
You're not funding a film slate, but the distance between what the company books as profit and what it actually collects in cash; this distance hasn't closed in three straight years. Call it “growth capital” if you like the story. Read the cash flow statement, and it looks more like a working capital rescue with a release calendar attached.
Profit is interpretation; cash is fact. In this RHP, the two don't only not disagree, but also nothing else in the balance sheet backs either one.
This is a reading of the company's own offer document, not investment advice.
