I think everyone including the press is getting confused between accounting for film profits and distributing film profits as dividends - now that the film part of village is 100% owned it is no longer and off balance sheet entity and therefore the results will be consolidated into the vrl annual report. They must list the revenue , costs and profits associated with their films, just like any other company has to, but they don't have to provide much detail. At a minimum I think they will list total film revenue, total amortised film costs (the film costs all get capitalised before a film is released and they are then amortised in proportion to expected revenues (i.e. if village expects a film to bring in 60% of its revenue in year 1, 20% in year 2 and 10% in years 3 and 4 then they will amortise 60& of the cost in year 1, 40% in year 2 and so on)) and state a profit figure for the film division for the year. The balance sheet will also show the remaining capitalised amount of film costs. They will not pay a dividend until all of the debt has been paid off as I think this is a condition of the debt, but we will see very summarised details of the film division performance.
Ed
VRL Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held