As Show East got underway back in October North America’s largest digital cinema integrator, Cinedigm, published a press release that was meant to serve as an industry update on the digital rollout in the territory. According to Cinedigm there were 12,802 digital screens in North America out of approximately 39,000 screens (not counting IMAX screens). That’s an increase of 65 percent.
I wondered where some of the figures Cinedigm was sighting came from and the company’s Co-CEO, Adam M. Mizel, was kind enough to speak with me at the beginning of November. Our conversation took place a week before Cinedigm announced second quarter revenues of USD $18.9 million. This was a 7.8 percent increase over the same quarter from last year, though the company suffered a net loss for the quarter of USD $9.4 million from continuing operations. The net loss for the first six months of Cinedigm’s fiscal year was USD $16.3 million.
Such losses might sound dire; however these figures are a 19.5 percent and 12.2 percent improvement over Cinedigm’s second quarter and first six months from last year and reflect non-cash depreciation charges. A true testament to the uptick in digital cinema rollout activity is the 13.3 percent increase in Cinedigm’s revenue to USD $38.2 million, which has helped make the company cash flow positive.
The same day as their second quarter earnings announcement Cinedigm revealed their Phase 2 financing entity had landed up to USD $86 million in senior credit from Societe Generale and Natixis. An additional USD $23 million in junior capital will come from Macquarie Equipment Finance.
What exactly does all this mean? Well, now Cinedigm has the ability to offer exhibitors non-recourse financing to deploy digital cinema equipment. Because the loans are being offered to Cinedigm as non-recourse, Macquarie will hold onto the title for the equipment. Cinedigm will continue to do what it always has; deploy, manage, bill and monitor digital cinema systems, work with content providers and be responsible for all the administrative work to service the debt.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Entries RSS
