Pinewood buoyed by strong demand for TV and film facilities

Year on year, stage occupancy increased from 76% to 81% which contributed to an overall increase in sales.

Revenue for the 12 months to March this year stood at £64.1m, up from £55m in the equivalent period last year.

Operating profit grew to £4.9m from £3.8m and pre-tax profit rose to £3.6m from £1.32m in 2013.

TV revenue for the year stood at £6.2m, compared to £5.2m for the previous year. Film revenues were £37.4m, an increase year on year of 6.3%. 

Net debt rose from £33.1m to £40.2m and the company has declared a final dividend of 1.9p per share compared with 1.5p in 2013.

Pinewood Shepperton chief executive Ivan Dunleavy (pictured) said: “During the year, the company had a strong performance with significant revenue increases in every area of the business. This has resulted in total revenues going up by 16.5%.

“The company has made an excellent start to the new financial year, enjoying good visibility for the year as a whole.”

Last week, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government granted planning permission for Pinewood’s longheld ambition for the £200m expansion of its Buckinghamshire site.

Dunleavy said the 81% utilisation of Pinewood’s studios “underpins all our arguments for the requirement for additional capacity”.

The company also revealed that it had been unable to accommodate productions keen to take advantage of the recently introduced tax incentives due to capacity constraints. 

“We will proceed quickly with the preparations for construction of this much needed additional capacity,” he added.

Pinewood already has a presence in Canada, Germany, Malaysia, the Dominican Republic and the US, and Dunleavy said the facilities group was in the process of reviewing the potential for expansion into continental South America, India, the Middle East and Africa.

He said: “We have lots going on internationally which we want to make sure is fully functional before we take on too much.”

Dunleavy also said there had been “a lot of interest” in Pinewood’s financing offer for TV shows.

He said: “We don’t talk about work that is in the pipeline but we are working with an interesting set of drama and high end TV shows and we expect to make an announcement in the next couple of months.”

Pinewood listed the completion of its 45,000 sq ft Q Stage, Camelot entering the TV3 stage from September last year and its appointment by the Welsh government to advise, promote and market a £30m media fund among its highlights of the past 12 months.