Blog
ZOO DIGITAL GROUP (LON:ZOO) - Interesting times at Zoo!
Posted 09/09/10
The creative media transformation software company issued a positive AGM statement along with news of the launch of a new production toolset that enables full movie material, including extras such as stills, deleted scenes, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, to be adapted for sale on the Apple iTunes® platform – Apple in the headline generally attracts some interest! Perhaps more importantly they also confirmed that a major Hollywood studio (no names!) has already chosen to adopt this technology for a range of catalogue titles.
Zoo Digital is an innovative technology business which works closely with major film studios to translate, produce and distribute regionalized media. With their in-house software (part of which works as an addition to the Adobe® Creative Suite) and 22 patents in the US, UK and other countries ZOO has developed simple, easy to use translation and regionalization tools. A potential customer is, for example, one who creates products in the US but wants to market worldwide, typically spending many millions of dollars translating and re-editing creative content. As profit margins are squeezed, and companies are under pressure to cut cost, ZOO provides a solution to make the process quick and easy.
It’s been an interesting 6 months with the share price up over 300% and +14% today (only 17,000 shares traded!)
On 28th June Multi Packaging Solutions, Inc. (‘MPS’), a US headquartered value-added print-based packaging solutions company made a strategic investment of £859,456 in Zoo at 40p per share and was also issued with warrants to subscribe for up to a maximum aggregate number of 2,148,642 shares at 50p per share.
The rationale for the investment was MPS’ ability to leverage relationships and sales capabilities that this group has outside of the entertainment industry (Zoo’s core market) through the use of Zoo’s proprietary software solutions for printed materials.
At the end of July they also announced the launch of an automated style-guide production system for home entertainment products securing Warner Home Video International as the first customer for this. In the past, style-guides (style and format-setting documents for product packaging and marketing campaigns) have been created manually. Zoo’s new automated system, means these documents can be produced more quickly and easily, saving time and cost and providing greater centralised control.
The year end results to end March 2010 announced at the end of June were also highly encouraging with revenue up 33% to US$15.1m and adjusted operating profit of $0.8m (compared with the previous years loss of $0.7m. Cash generated from operating activities was $2.1m resulting in a year end cash balance of US$1.2m (2009: $1.4m).
Could be one worth following!
This entry was posted 1 year, 5 months ago and was filed under Zoo Digital.
