Century Business Media IPO
Century Business Media IPO is an SME IPO raising ₹17 Cr at ₹70 – ₹74 a share. It listed on 21 Sept 2026 at ₹74, 0.0% against its issue price of ₹74, and trades at ₹57 today (−23.0% since issue). It was subscribed 54× in total.
53.9 times more demand than shares on offer
populated partly populated we hold nothing here — the tab says why
What this company actually does
Read out of the prospectus’s business section, stripped of its marketing language.
Century Business Media Limited sells advertising space on Out-of-Home (OOH) media formats — digital and static — at airports, railway stations, metro stations and city locations. It holds exclusive advertising rights at five airports (Patna, Ranchi, Deoghar, Darbhanga, Jorhat), non-exclusive rights at Dimapur and Lilabari, and marketing rights at Gaya, Agartala and Silchar; exclusive rights outside 714 railway stations across the East Central Railway zone; and Platform Screen Door advertising rights at Howrah and Esplanade metro stations. Operations are concentrated in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and North-Eastern India, with clients served across multiple Indian states.
How it earns
Revenue comes from selling advertising space on inventory it owns or controls under media-rights agreements with airport, railway and metro authorities, plus trading/subletting of third-party hoarding space and related mounting/installation services. (All amounts originally in Rs. lakhs; converted to crore at 1 crore = 100 lakhs.)
Who buys
Customer names are not disclosed in the prospectus (labelled Customer 1–10). Top 10 customers contributed 45.56% of FY2025-26 revenue (Rs. 21.15 crore / 2,115.32 lakhs), down from 39.73% in FY2024-25 and 46.38% in FY2023-24. Largest single customer was 11.07% of FY2025-26 revenue (Rs. 5.14 crore / 513.85 lakhs), with the next two at 6.98% and 6.29%. Client base spans corporates, PSUs, government departments (central and state) and advertising/media-buying agencies across banking, financial services, insurance, education, healthcare, hosiery, jewellery, FMCG, oil & gas, power & energy, steel, mining and infrastructure.
Scale
58 employees as of 31 July 2026 (incl. 2 Directors and 2 KMPs); 1 store-cum-workshop facility at Patna; advertising rights at 5 exclusive + 2 non-exclusive + 3 marketing airports, 714 railway stations and 2 metro stations; FY2025-26 revenue from operations Rs. 46.43 crore (4,643.34 lakhs), EBITDA Rs. 8.58 crore (857.62 lakhs), PAT Rs. 5.56 crore (555.56 lakhs).
What it says sets it apart
- Portfolio of exclusive advertising rights at five airports (Patna, Ranchi, Deoghar, Darbhanga, Jorhat), plus non-exclusive rights at Dimapur and Lilabari and marketing rights at Gaya, Agartala and Silchar.
- Exclusive advertising rights outside 714 railway stations across the East Central Railway zone's five divisions (Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonepur).
- Multi-segment revenue mix spanning AOOH, ROOH, MOOH and City OOH, with Airport OOH rising from 49.21% of revenue in FY2023-24 to 61.52% in FY2025-26.
- Geographic spread across Bihar (35.56%), Jharkhand (21.19%), Delhi (15.43%), West Bengal (9.16%) and multiple other states in FY2025-26.
- Secured exclusive advertising rights for the new terminal at Patna Airport and PSD advertising rights at Howrah and Esplanade metro stations; in-house store-cum-workshop facility at Patna for inventory preparation.
Revenue mix
The prospectus gives overlapping breakdowns here, so the shares are not shown.
The numbers at a glance
The price they’re asking →derived: cut-off price Rs74 / stated EPS Rs8.61 (FY2025-26 (Financial Year ending March 31, 2026) Basic & Diluted EPS, as restated). Stated figures are as printed in the prospectus; margins, growth and the borrowing ratio are computed from its own summary table. A multiple is one lens, not a verdict.
The last few years in numbers
From the prospectus’s own summary financial table (restated consolidated). Margins and growth are computed from the stated figures; everything else is as printed.
| Period | Revenue | Profit after tax | PAT margin | Net worth | Borrowings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | ₹46 Cr+27% | ₹6 Cr+18% | 12.0% | ₹18 Cr | ₹8 Cr |
| FY2025 | ₹37 Cr+14% | ₹5 Cr+28% | 12.8% | ₹12 Cr | ₹5 Cr |
| FY2024 | ₹32 Cr | ₹4 Cr | 11.5% | ₹8 Cr | ₹8 Cr |
Where the money goes
The offer →Most of this issue is new shares — the money raised goes to the company, not to exiting shareholders.
How its cohort has done
185 SME issues listed in 2026 that we can price today. This is the group this issue belongs to.
Neither figure is a forecast for this issue — they describe what happened to comparable issues. Full cohort analytics →
How the book finished
The category split is the number worth reading, not the total.
Non-institutional: 84× their allocation. Retail: 40×.
What we hold for this issue
Stated up front on every issue, so a sparse page reads as a fact about the source rather than a broken one.
What could go wrong
All 14 risks & documents →From the register read out of the issuer’s own prospectus — each item is quoted verbatim with its page on the risks tab.
What happens when
Next: the UPI mandate expires on 28 Oct 2026.
What to watch
- Priced at 8.6× earnings — 58% below the median of the peers the issuer itself names.
- The register's top risk: Government concession and privatization dependency (prospectus page 25).
- Its cohort's record: median −2.7% since issue price, 51.9% now below it — a base rate, not a forecast.
Each line restates a disclosure from the prospectus or the exchanges — nothing here is a recommendation to apply to this issue.
Track Century Business Media Limited
Results, orders, board decisions and every other filing — summarised and sent to your WhatsApp the minute they are out.
Figures are as published by the exchanges and the issuer’s prospectus. MarketPing publishes facts, comparisons and history only — nothing here is a recommendation to apply to this issue, and we do not publish grey market premium.