Sony says to make fewer films as it shifts to television

November 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Friday November 22, 2013 MYT 11:00:48 AM

Sony says to make fewer films as it shifts to television

LOS ANGELES:  Sony Pictures Entertainment will produce fewer films as it makes a “significant” shift from motion pictures to higher-margin television production and to operating TV channels, Sony Corp executives told investors gathered at the company’s Culver City, California, studio lot. The declaration came as Sony battles to win investor support after a letter from hedge fund investor Daniel Loeb in May called on Sony to spin off to investors a portion of its entertainment business and take steps to improve the studio’s profitability.The studio has identified $250 million in overhead and procurement cost cuts that it expects to make in the next two or three years, said Sony Entertainment CEOMichael Lynton.

The studio is also working with a “third party” – identified in prior media reports asBain & Co – to identify further cuts, he said.

Lynton forecast that the company’s pictures business, which includes its film and television operations, will have revenues of $8.4 billion in fiscal year 2015, and an operating margin of 7.4 percent. In its music business, the company expects revenue of $4.8 billion with a 9.5 percent operating income margin.

Sony studio chief Amy Pascal said the studio will cut the numbers of films it makes, and next year will release fewer than 20 films, down from the 23 it released in prior years. It will release four films in the summer, compared to nine this summer, she said.

Sony had a mixed year at the box office, with hits like “Grown Ups 2” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” but also flops like “White House Down,” which was made for $150 million but generated just $205 million in worldwide ticket sales that it shares with theater owners, according to the site Box Office Mojo.

The company had an operating loss of $181 million in its fiscal second quarter that ended Sept. 30 for its pictures unit, which includes film and TV production, the company said on Oct. 31. It cited “White House Down” as one reason for the loss.

Traders reacted cautiously to Thursday’s presentation, boosting its stock by 0.6 percent to $18.64 a share in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. It traded as high as $18.79 earlier on Thursday.

“My takeaway so far is that Sony Entertainment has tremendous unrecognized depth from TV production of hits like ‘Breaking Bad’ and leadership in the growth of networks in India,” Daniel Ernst, principal at Hudson Square Research, said in an email.

“But that depth only reinforces my view that those businesses would get better recognition and unlock more value if they listed a stake of the business separately,” said Ernst, who rates Sony shares as a hold.

The company, which promised greater transparency to Loeb, reported more detailed numbers for its entertainment businesses than it had done in the past.

Loeb’s Third Point owns about 7 percent of Sony Corp. – Reuters

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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