Pinewood Studios Group Posts Over $30 Million Profit

Pinewood Studios Group (PSG) has posted profits of over £23.5 million ($30.6 million) in its most recent accounts.

The accounts, which cover the 12-month period up to March 31, 2021, show a post-taxation profit of £23,517,000 ($30,651,565).

That’s an almost £25 million ($32.5 million) increase on the previous year’s accounts, which showed a loss of £1.6 million ($2 million).

The company, which is registered at U.K. registrar Companies House under the name Pinewood-Shepperton Studios Limited, is a subsidiary of Pinewood Group Limited.

According to the financial report, which was filed at Companies House on April 4, PSG “acts as a holding company and an agent to issue and receive invoices and accept and make payments on behalf of the trading subsidiaries of Pinewood Group Limited.”

These include the world-renowned Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, where films including “No Time to Die” and “Black Widow” have been shot, and Shepperton Studios in Surrey, which has provided the backdrop to films such as “Cruella” and “Belfast.”

The 12-month period leading up to March 31, 2021 also included a number of restructures for PSG, including the dissolution of two companies – Pinewood Wales Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Pinewood Malaysia Limited, a collaboration with Iskandar Malaysia Studios – which saw PSG’s net assets increase from £31.8 to £55.4 million ($41.4 to $72.2 million).

The winding up of the Wales subsidiary in October 2020 saw PSG incur losses of £1.57 million ($2 million) relating to balances owed by Pinewood Wales Limited. Meanwhile the dissolution of Pinewood Malaysia Limited in the same month saw PSG receive a final dividend of £4 million ($5.2 million).

Most profitably, the dissolution of Shepperton Studios Property Partnership — a limited partnership in which PSG held an interest via the subsidiary Shepperton Studios (General Partner) Limited — in November 2020 yielded a final dividend of £19.4 million ($25.2 million). Shepperton Studios (General Partner) Limited was dissolved in May 2021 following a “restructuring in the prior year of the lease arrangement relating to Shepperton studios.” In November 2021, Pinewood revealed that Netflix had extended its lease of the studios.

PSG also owns a 25% stake in PMBS Holding Ltd, a lighting company with an exclusive contract to provide lighting for productions at at Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios until 2024. Under its revenue-sharing agreement with PMBS, PSG received £1.1 million ($1.4 million) on lighting services in the year ending March 2021, slightly up from £1,054,000 ($1.3 million) the previous year.

PSG’s financial statements clarify that the information within them are only related to PSG “as an individual entity” and are not representative of Pinewood Group Limited, who file their own financial statements separately and on a separate date.

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