Shareholders of National Lottery backed Civilian Content are livid this week after the mysterious acquisition and sale of three production companies over two years - each at an astonishing loss.
The Guardian published the article on Friday that reads like a Cosa Nostra bedtime tale. Richard Thompson, former owner of QPR football club, sold the first two production companies to Civilian for a cool million quid…within five weeks of setting them up for UKP10 (yes, a tenner) each.
One company is now sitting unused while the other has been shut down, leaving their recently established TV production arm in tact. The third company, which lined the lucky Mr Thompson's pockets with UKP1.9m of Civilian's purse, had assets of just UKP40,000 and had managed to lose 700,000 in just six months, has also been closed. Again, the TV arm remains active.
Civilian's baffled shareholders are understandably furious as the write off's will slash the company's assets drastically. The company was originally a Meat packaging operation but turned toward the film industry before buying The Film Consortium which had received public funding through the National Lottery.
As no independent evaluation of any of the production companies took place before their acquisition, those standing to lose out remain in the dark. One shareholder fumed, Th only person who seems to have made anything out of this is the company chairman. Why were they buying these businesses from a director of the company in the first place without anyone independent checking out how much they were worth? The meat business paid us a dividend. The film business pays us nothing."
Civilian insisted that shareholders were informed but that, due to their AIM listing, they were not obliged to seek an independent evaluation of anything they acquire. The reasoning behind these bewildering manoeuvres is Civilian's planned concentration on finance and distribution as opposed to production.
Those investing in the company have reason to be nervous. The company registered a pre-tax loss of some UKP800,000 against a turnover of UKP2.1m in the first half of 2001.
Waking Ned and Shooting Fish producer, Richard Holmes walked out on Civilian a fortnight ago for unknown reasons. His position has now been filled by Chris Auty.
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The Guardian published the article on Friday that reads like a Cosa Nostra bedtime tale. Richard Thompson, former owner of QPR football club, sold the first two production companies to Civilian for a cool million quid…within five weeks of setting them up for UKP10 (yes, a tenner) each.