The box office of "Eight Hundred" received a good news, which relieved the Huayi Brothers who were in the debt crisis. The entire film industry is also looking forward to seeing a "savior alone" drama. However, the script does not seem to be written like this.
Huayi is deeply in debt, and the "two kings" embarked on the road of self-help
The debt crisis of Huayi Brothers started from the first loss in the 2018 annual report.
financial report data shows that Huayi Brothers had a net loss of 1.09 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 231.97%. By 2019, Huayi Brothers' loss further expanded to 3.96 billion yuan. At the same time, Huayi Brothers' assets and cash flow have shrunk by more than 70% in 2019. The balance of cash and cash equivalents on its accounts has decreased from 2.155 billion yuan in 2018 to 554 million yuan in 2019.
On January 29, 2019 and April 11, 2019, Huayi Brothers' two bonds totaling 2.9 billion yuan were about to expire, while Huayi Brothers had only 3 billion yuan on its books. For a time, the huge debt pressure caused this first Chinese film and television stock to encounter an unprecedented crisis at the historic moment of its ten-year listing. This crisis has also developed to an uncontrollable level in the spring of 2020.
Due to the outbreak of the epidemic, the national cinemas have been shut down indefinitely. Although Huayi Brothers does not plan to release the film during the Spring Festival this year, when the entire industry enters a state of indefinite suspension, it means that Huayi Brothers will not only continue to bear huge debts, but also face ongoing production And the challenge that the movie project scheduled to start in 2020 cannot go smoothly. The financial report of
shows that in the first quarter of 2020, Huayi Brothers' revenue was 229 million yuan, down 61.4% year-on-year; the net loss was 143 million yuan, down 52.64% year-on-year, and the balance of cash and cash equivalents on its books was only 268 million yuan.
Faced with the debt crisis that is burning eyebrows, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei can only run around to "raise money", fortunately relying on the influence of years of contacts and circle of friends. On April 28, 2020, when Huayi Brothers released the 2019 financial report and the first quarter report of 2020, it also released the non-public stock issuance plan.
The plan shows that Huayi Brothers intends to issue non-public shares at a price of 2.78 yuan per share, with the total raised funds not exceeding 2.29 billion yuan, mainly used to supplement liquidity and repay loans. The details of the
plan show that the non-public issuance of A shares is targeted for as many as 9 companies, including Alibaba Pictures, Tencent Computer, Sunshine Life, etc., and the above 9 issuance targets all subscribe for shares in cash. The cash purchases of giants such as Ali and Tencent not only gave Huayi Brothers a chance to breathe, but also temporarily affected the stock price of Huayi Brothers. The A-share market opened on April 29, and Huayi Brothers quickly reached a daily limit of 3.94 yuan, setting a new high in a month and a half.
fixed increase, sell the house to raise money, and finally have to rely on the box office?
From the 2019 financial report released by Huayi Brothers in April this year, it can be seen that the company's non-current liabilities due within one year are 667 million, in addition to short-term loans of 2.087 billion, and various accounts payable in total of 1.054 billion. The sum of the above three items alone has reached 3.808 billion. After deducting the 2.29 billion assisted by 9 companies such as Ali and Tencent, and the approximately 422 million various receivables in the financial report, Huayi Brothers needs at least 1.096 billion to completely get out of the debt quagmire. In the end, how should the hole of more than 1 billion be filled?
In August 2019, Wang Zhongjun, chairman of Huayi Brothers, at the 2019 Yabuli Forum Summer Summit, revealed that he had solved the cash flow problem of Huayi Brothers by selling paintings. In June of this year, there was news that Wang Zhongjun sold a Hong Kong property he bought for HK$132 million in 2010 for HK$220 million (approximately 200 million yuan). Some netizens teased,The chairman was forced to start selling the house. It seems that Huayi Brothers really has no money on the account.
However, whether it is selling paintings or selling personal real estate, it is only a way to raise funds in the short term. If Huayi Brothers wants to completely get rid of the financial dilemma, it has to rely on the film industry.
According to the 2019 financial report of Huayi Brothers, the company plans to release 11 theatrical movies in 2020, and the only one that has been completed so far is "Yabai". In addition, according to the information disclosed by Wang Zhonglei and during the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival in July, Huayi Brothers has sufficient "ammunition" for big screen works in the second half of the year.
The film "Samurai God Order" (formerly known as "Onmyoji") adapted from the phenomenon-level mobile game, " Mermaid 2" by Stephen Chow, "749 Bureaus" directed by Lu Chuan, and "Swimming Until the Sea Turns Blue" directed by Jia Zhangke , Cao Baoping's "Walk through the Angry Sea", Li Yu's "Sunshine Is Not a Robber", Chang Yuan's " Warm Hug " and many other major productions have all entered the post-production stage. After
has experienced more than half a year of silence in the entire film industry, the outside world generally expects that the film market will stage a fierce battle in the second half of the year. How big a piece of cake Huayi Brothers can grab from the box office market in the second half of the year is still a question mark. The only thing that can be confirmed is that the outstanding performance after the release of "Yu Bai" can be regarded as the clarion call for the recovery of the entire film industry.
tried to get rid of the “singularization of movies” and might fall into the deep pit of real-life entertainment.
, as the first big-screen work with a box office of over 1 billion after the theater officially resumed work, the excellent box office performance of "Yai Hundred" is not only related to the movie itself. To a large extent, it also relies on the mature operation of theaters and marketing.
With the help of more than 88% of the theater lineup in the four days before the release, and the intensive online marketing, "Yao Bai" successfully grabbed the attention of movie consumers and earned an average daily box office of 170 million. Some media have optimistically predicted that if calculated based on the time it takes to release one month, "Eight Hundred" may exceed 5 billion box office.
However, with the decrease in the proportion of films on the fifth day, the box office of "Yai Hundred" has begun to fall. In addition to the subsequent release of other movies, the proportion of "Yao Bai" will inevitably be further squeezed. "Yao Bai" may still be a long way from the goal of 5 billion box office. However, Huayi Brothers has begun to develop new positions in other fields.
On August 24, some media reported the news about Huayi Brothers' deployment of live entertainment.
Real-life entertainment is actually one of the important strategies Huayi Brothers put forward in 2011 to achieve the goal of "de-moving film singularity", and it is also Huayi Brothers' attempt to get rid of the weakness of its main business since 2018.
At the media sharing meeting of "Yai Bai" in May 2017, Huayi Brothers revealed that it would transform the movie scenes in "Yai Bai" into permanent real-life projects, and planned to cooperate with Huayi Brothers Movie World (Suzhou) after the filming was completed. ) Open to the outside world together.
According to Wang Zhongjun, Chairman of Huayi Brothers, "Scene setting, filming, and retention are coordinated and unified. What this embodies is the core advantage and internal logic of Huayi Brothers' film live entertainment business." But Huayi Brothers. Brothers’ live entertainment is essentially positioned like Hengdian World Studios and Xiangshan World Studios.
Due to structural limitations, there is a big gap between the studios and theme parks in terms of playability and profitability. Compared with the established studios, Huayi Brothers’ live entertainment projects have some disadvantages in terms of first-mover advantages and industry experience. For a company like Huayi Brothers, which is purely film and television genes, the operation of theme parks is a new challenge.
The Huayi Brothers who were just about to climb out of the quagmire of debt, I am afraid they will fall into the pit of real-life entertainment again.
