Pinewood Studios puts tough year behind

Pinewood Shepperton, the film studio that houses productions for the likes of James Bond and Harry Potter, is putting a difficult year behind it - reports ShareCast.

Difficult conditions within its film division as provisional bookings failed to firm up into actual firm contracts were to blame for two sales warnings in as many weeks leading to the axing of its interim dividend.

2006 should prove to be less burdensome though, said Pinewood today, as the Chancellor's 2006 Budget announcement of UK film incentives, effective from 1 April helped to resolve uncertainties over film tax.

Overall, film production investment in the UK for 2005 was £559m compared with £812m a year earlier, “mostly due to the uncertainty over the UK film tax environment, which is now resolving itself satisfactorily.”

Chairman Michael Grade said, “We expect, revenues in the first half of the year to be ahead of the comparable period for 2005 and further, that revenues will return to normal levels in the second half of the year, in line with market expectations.”

Turnover came in at £33.4m for the year against £38.7m previously while operating profit was £3.7m from £11.4m last time. Pre-tax profit slumped to just £0.57m from £6.45m a year ago.

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