The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring financial educator and author Jared Dillian has been released. Listen here.
I had a look at Will Sawyers Experience & Achievements, which include - M&A experience including growing and selling entrepreneurial digital business to Sky. Sold Diagonal View to Sky in March 2017. (will have contacts there)
Transformed ITN Productions from loss making to significantly profitable, and helped turn it into one of the top independent producers in the UK.
Won major new deals by leading on financial and commercial propositions.
Identified significant cost savings through restructuring departments, improving processes and switching suppliers.
Raised investment in Diagonal View and led on selling stake in a start-up news site. (may help to do the same for Zinc's publishing division )
Set up financial processes and controls to take on accounting functions of three new companies, and improved the financial management of international offices.
Set up financial controls and instilled a focus on profitability to enable the businesses to grow quickly.
I like the fact he has grown & sold companies to SKY, Won major deals, raised investment, saved costs & focuses on Profitability & growth.
It looks like the Zinc team have made a good acquisition in Will Sawyer, & are really moving in the right direction & building a stronger company -
Zinc media's Chief Financial Officer & board member - That's got to be a positive, he obviously see's a future at Zinc Media worth leaving ITN for !! Pretty good background also previously corporate finance manager at BBC and a senior finance manager at Ofcom. That says a lot about Zinc Media, when Zinc are attracting that calibre of candidate !!
Teddy - I think you are quite right when you say "a lot of this hasn't been reflected in the share price but one day will".The recent deal with the agent in the USA is going to make a big difference to revenues. Documentary sales are surging, there is a lot of enthusiasm for independant non-fiction, in the USA select documentaries are shown at cinemas, THEY GET LARGE BUDGETS & viewers are interested in facts. Times are changing, for so long Hollywood has been churning out fantasy make believe stuff -action, drama, fiction etc. There is a new sense of optimism about the documentary market place & Zinc are SPECIALISTS & well placed to capitalise.
There is a lot going on Comcast & Fox are trying to outbid each other to get hold of Sky, which has the ability to create Content, a model that US media & Telecommunications companies hope to copy. Keeping up with Silicon Valley's video ambitions has been a priority for traditional media companies which have largely decided to compete by opening there wallets to make acquisitions. Interesting times ahead for content providers.
Good luck all
Commissioning spend is changing, “ The proportion of spend on different genres has changed considerably since 2008 with spend on drama nearly halving in value (24% of spend in 2016 compared with 41% in 2008). In comparison, spend on factual entertainment - has nearly doubled (13% of spend in 2008 compared with 24% in 2016).”
That was a news article two years ago, so it looks like Zinc understood which way the market was moving & have been setting up the company to benefit from this new direction
In February 2017 Netflix won its first Oscar and its first Bafta. Surprisingly, the awards were not for any of its high-profile drama series, but for two documentaries. The Academy Award went to The White Helmets, a film about a group of Syria Civil Defence volunteer rescue workers. The Bafta winner was 13th, Ava DuVernay’s film about race in the US criminal justice system. Time Out wrote recently: “Netflix has revitalised the documentary industry."
Zinc Media are in a good solid position to capitalise, & they are not just talking about it, as recent news shows .
The recent commissions should just have made it into this years figures as the year end is 30th June & commissions get paid quite a large part of the commission up front.
This years figures should be better than forcast as there would have probably been some sort of trading statement before the year end, the last interims released in March for the 6 months to 31st Dec showed an order book of £14.4m & EBITDA up 300%, Since then there have been considerable commissions, recommissions & the ICM deal.
Content demand will drive M&A - An analyst explains why more Mergers & Acquisitions in the media space could happen as the competition for CONTENT intensifies. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/06/20/this-analyst-says-content-demand-will-drive-media-ma.html They are talking about how 5G will bring entertainment on demand instantaneously & companies that own content will be king, why netflix is doing so well, they make content, Amazon etc. these companies are also looking for content (well made content which is what zinc do).
In 1996 Bill Gates wrote Content is King, " Content is where i expect much of the real money will be made on the internet, just as it was in broadcasting" . Is text content still King or will video content occupy the throne in 2018 ??
Zinc Media are moving in the right direction & seem very much to understand where they are going.
Instagram has launched a new video hub for its creators. Called “IGTV” the hub will allow Instagram creators to upload longer videos. As of now, the social media platform restricts the users to a 1-minute video. With the IGTV feature in place, Instagram creators will get a chance to upload videos that range from 15 seconds to 60 minutes. Instagram is mostly focussing on CELEBRITIES that made it big by using Instagram as an outreach platform. In other words, the focus is more on the homegrown celebrities rather than the traditional ones. Apart from helping Instagram increase their engagement, the newer videos will also shift the spotlight on the creators. Perhaps this will help the creators leverage their reach in a whole new way. (& more demand for content will be required here, looks like Jared Dylan fits into that category - Zinc are ahead once again !!
"Both Comcast and Disney are keen to buy Fox's entertainment assets, including Sky, in order to acquire film and television CONTENT that would enable them to compete more effectively with digital giants, like Netflix and Amazon, who sell their CONTENT directly to viewers". https://news.sky.com/story/disney-raises-bid-for-fox-assets-to-713bn-11411067 It looks like CONTENT (which is what ZINC do) is in demand.
Why wait for the next RNS - Here is another production Zinc are working on for Jared Dylan, form the USA http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1711100-jared-dylan-new-york/ Zinc are just going to produce an incredible set of results pretty soon, there is a lot going on, it looks like sir Bob is involved in this documentary too, Is the ICM deal allready opening doors for Zinc Media in the USA
Fonters - I think your spot on when you say "There's no stock about", I feel that the market makers are short of stock & so keep selling what they have'nt got, as stock is bought to keep the price down, probably in the hope that investors will get impatient & offload. Why would you sell when any news or RNS will create more demand & push up the price. Zinc have turned around & are in much better shape than when the sp was way above what it is now. Zinc are way undervalued.
The market makers were probably caught out when the latest news came out & so were probably supplying what they did not have when the demand came in from customers who they did not want to lose. since then they have needed to demoralize the buyers. i would bet that they are quite a lot of stock still short, hence more shorting. There will certainly be more positive news on the way which will see another stampede to get more stock & the market makers will need to be ready !! "The Wonderful World of Puppies " returns to channel 5 on sat 16th June at 6.10pm
I would,nt be surprised if it was'nt the Market Makers who did all the selling, (shorting) This inherent power of position enables the MMs to move the markets at any time up or down. As a result, the only way to draw them out of their favorable position is going long. Now this does not mean just any company but to effectively nail the MMs, Longs must find the great company on the floor and accumulate long before the MM tactics and games begin. So Bladey, they probably expect a lot of demand once more news is released, at which point they can profit quite nicely, if their shorting has shaken out enough investors - thats the gamble they take ! Some ways MM's entice sellers; Run the stock up with a "tight spread" in a fast market, then "open" up the spread to slow down the buying interest. After it has "cooled off" for a little while lower the offer below the last trade right after a small piece trades on the offer then tighten the spread so that the sellers feel they can take a "quick profit" by "hitting the bid" on the tight spread. Once the selling starts the MM's will walk it down quickly by only making small prints on the way down with the tight spread. Another way is by running the stock up in the morning, averaging up their short then use the above technique to walk it down in the afternoon. Hopefully after doing this for several days, it will demoralize the buyers. The volume will dry up and the sellers will materialize thinking that the game is over. They are not having any of what i hold in Zinc !! Good luck All
is currently being repeated on More 4 each afternoon at 4.50pm & "Getting the Builders in" is being repeated on BBC 2 each afternoon at 2.30pm - for anyone who missed them last time around . Did anyone watch "Extreme Football In Russia" on sat 9th June at 9pm it was a Tern production for National Geographic - Another Broadcaster that is choosing Zinc Media companies. I am looking forward to this years results as Zinc seem to be achieving so much. I do not understand why anyone would sell for a quick small profit, when the future looks very promising & i would expect the likes of Shares magazine or Investors chronicle to issue a buy stance in the near future.
Zinc will have a massive amount of content available that has allready been produced by all of the companies within the group -eg. "Put Your Money Where your Mouth is" has been popular & is always being repeated by the BBC, lots of other productions are constantly repeated, "Hidden Villages"etc, there are lots & lots of productions that will be able to be resold to US broadcasters, A lot of the Reef productions & the Tern productions can be repeated quite easily, plus all the other panorama type productions will have appeal, The Revenue potential is ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE. How many businesses can create something that they can sell, remain owners of & then sell again. Plus of course new commissions will create good revenue. If this deal looked like good news, its going to be very very interesting to hear about productions that are getting re-sold that require no costs, pure profit !!!
The ICM deal opens a lot of doors for Zinc & i would expect that Zinc will now be in a much better situation when it comes to negotiations on the Acquisition trail. Smaller independents are going to want to become part of the group so much more, we should expect more news of Acquisitions in the near future. Zinc are still way undervalued, just consider what Sky paid for Love Productions !!
Glad you held on Wideyed - The company has been working hard, It goes to show, they know what they are doing & are proving a strategy that looks to be working, having offloaded the publishing side & building up the production of content side. There are a lot of broadcasters, who need content & quality content at that, which Zinc are award winners at.
didn't need Brave bison, its just taken off, will it beat Brave Bison on the Riser Board today ?
The agency represents several noted executive producers and other showrunners and has successfully packaged hit shows such as �Grey�s Anatomy;� �Dancing with the Stars;� �Modern Family;� �The Big Bang Theory;� �Criminal Minds;� �Undercover Boss;� �Cougar Town;� �House;� �Breaking Bad;� �The Simpsons;� �Two and a Half Men;� �Sons of Anarchy;� �Psych;� �The Ellen DeGeneres Show;� �America�s Next Top Model;� �Kitchen Nightmares;� �Last Comic Standing;� �Don�t Forget the Lyrics;� �Friends;� �Army Wives;� �Cheers;� �Sex and the City;� �Frasier;� �Scrubs;� and �The X-Files.� ICM Partners also represents a number of high profile sports and news broadcasters and journalists.
from various critics. The BBC has ploughed considerable resources into the feature-length, dramatised documentary. The pyrotechnics and stunt work you would more usually associate with big-budget drama are used judiciously to bring this never-more-relevant story to life. https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tv-critics/suffragettes-with-lucy-worsley/5129873.article also here. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jun/04/sufragettes-with-lucy-worsley-review-womens-fight-for-rights
Tonight for Zinc - "Suffragettes" on BBC1 at 8.30pm until 10pm (1.5 hour) is the Critics choice/pick of the day - another Brook Lapping production. Zinc companies very busy, also "Terror in the Air flights out of control" was a Tern production on 1st June & "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is", Is on BBC 2 everyday at 4.30pm.