The brightly coloured world of Bollywood is to meet the pinstripes of the City after Eros International announced its intention to float on the London Stock Exchange yesterday in a move that could see the Indian film group valued at more than $400m (£210m).

The privately held Eros, which hopes to raise $100m from the flotation, is understood to be the world's leading distributor of Hindi films with an average of 35 movies a year over the past 14 years.

Founded in 1977, the company has been responsible for an estimated 40% of Bollywood films distributed in Britain over the past eight years.

In the last nine months of last year Eros made a profit before tax, interest and goodwill of $12.6m on turnover of about $32.2m. It predicts annual sales of about $44m, at the low end of expectations.

Although Bollywood producers are prolific, revenues are low when compared with Hollywood films. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that industry revenues were $1.25bn in 2004, enough to cover just a few blockbusters.