JOHOR BARU – Britain’s Pinewood Studios saw financial gains after ending their respective partnerships in Wales and Malaysia.
This revelation follows financial reports for the year ending March 31, 2021, filed by Pinewood-Shepperton Studios Limited (PSS) with Britain’s Companies House.
PSS, which is a subsidiary of Pinewood Group Limited (PGL), functions as a holding company and agent tasked with the issuance and receipt of invoices as well as accepting and receiving payments on behalf of PGL’s subsidiaries.
It appears that before the filing of the report, PGL went through a restructuring of its business, including dissolving several partnership arrangements, including the one entered with Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd.
This corporate restructuring, according to the financial report, saw PSS’ net assets increase by £23.6 million (RM129.22 million) from £31.8 million (RM174.12 million) to £55.4 million (RM303.34 million).
The £23.6 million increase in the value of the company’s net assets resulted mostly from the end of its partnership arrangement with Shepperton Studios (General Partner) Ltd, and the dissolution of its subsidiaries Pinewood Studio Wales and Pinewood Malaysia Ltd (PML) among other things.
PML is a company incorporated in the United Kingdom which entered into a 10-year agreement in 2009 to provide marketing, operations and management support for the former Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios (PIMS).
When the partnership between PGL and Khazanah came to an end in 2019, PML was dissolved.
“On October 20, 2020, PML was dissolved. As a result of this dissolution, PSS received a final dividend of £4 million (RM21.82 million),” the financial report said.
In 2009, PGL entered into an agreement with Khazanah to open PIMS, a state-of-the-art film production facility in Iskandar Puteri, Johor with initial investments into the project ranging between RM528 million and RM748 million.
However, a decade later, through a mutual agreement, Pinewood and Khazanah ended its partnership with PIMS being renamed Iskandar Malaysia Studios (IMS).
During the partnership, PIMS received government grants totalling RM250 million from the Strategic Iskandar Fund and the Public-Private Cooperation Unit.
Further, this month, it was reported that IMS was sold to Singaporean content producer G.H.Y Culture & Media for RM32 million. – The Vibes, April 11, 2023
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