Emerging China and U.S. movie businesses are contributory to Pinewood's growth. (Photo : Reuters)
Pinewood Group CEO Ivan Dunleavy recognized the contribution of emerging U.S. and China businesses in its growth as it posted improved fiscal year financials on June 30, Tuesday.
Apart from these businesses, big-budgeted productions such as "Avengers: Age of Ultron," "Star Wars: Episode VII," and "Spectre," have helped significantly in its recent feat.
Britain's Pinewood Group is Europe's largest provider of studio and stage space.
The earnings report comes in time, which is ahead of meetings among Pinewood executives and shareholders, including activist U.K. investment fund Crystal Amber, which recently acquired again a stake on the firm and is pushing for higher financial returns.
Dunleavy said that Pinewood will meet their shareholders "in the coming days and weeks."
"We published the results this morning, and I am sure that the results speak for themselves," he added.
Meanwhile, Dunleavy also revealed that the firm is set to open five more stages in the summer of 2016, highlighting its effort to add more capacity.
Asked about the company's 80-percent occupancy rate for the previous fiscal years, he explained:
"A large-budget production may have a stage requirement anywhere between five to 10 stages at any single moment. And obviously as you have several of those productions around the lot, there will be a peak in the space requirement. Whilst the average rate may run at 80 percent, the peak rate is what we need to respond to. If you can't deal with the peak rate, then we can't actually provide our services to those potential large-budget films in the way that we want."
Dunleavy also furthered that Pinewood is continuing its effort to "make progress" in its global initiatives, which have been contributory in increasing its international revenue.
In terms of its cooperation with China, he remarked: "We're learning as we go working with fellow studio operators in China, working potentially with independent filmmakers in China. And I see potential in being able to create co-productions between the U.K. and China that hopefully will appeal to Chinese audiences. We would be the production services bridge."
