The most recent financial statements and tax returns of Marjan Television Network Limited, the owner of Manoto TV was published in recent months. In the UK the corporate financial statements and tax returns are publicly available on Companies House website operated by the UK government. The recent financial report of Manoto TV shows that the company has lost around 92 million pounds over the years and has been operating with the money received from unknown investors who don’t seem to be concerned about making profits.
The recent report is related to the fiscal year ending on September 30th, 2017. Companies are required to file their tax returns within 3 months from their fiscal year end to avoid penalty and interest payments. However, since Marjan Television Network has lost money significantly, they have filed their tax report over 9 months after the year end.
Review of the Statement of Comprehensive Income shows that the operational costs of the business have been 19 times the sales revenue during the recent fiscal year. This ratio for the previous fiscal year was over 42 times. It seems that the company is far away from a profitable horizon. During the last two years in 2016 and 2017, total operating costs was over 36 million Pounds while the sales was less than 1.5 million Pounds (less than 4%).
Other than start-ups and high tech companies that invest in research and development of new products and services, other traditional businesses are expected to lose money only in their first years (not more than 5 years) before they become profitable. However, this is not the case for Marjan Television Network and Manoto TV.
While the company has lost significant amount of money and is not expected to turn profitable anytime soon, Marjan Television Network is not expected to file bankruptcy as well. A closer look at their balance sheet shows that the liabilities of the company in the previous fiscal year (ending September 2016) were more than 4 times their fixed assets. However, thanks to the 34 million Pounds of new shares issued, a huge part of the liabilities was covered! Simply speaking, there are generous shareholders behind Marjan Television Network paying for debts as well as 95% of the operating expenses of Manoto TV.
Who are these generous shareholders?
In the financial statements and tax returns not much information has been disclosed about the identity of the shareholders and investors. So far the shareholders of Marjan Television Network have injected 95 million Pounds to the company and given the financial outlook of the company they are expected to inject millions more for the operation of Manoto TV to continue. The financial statements show that 92 million Pounds of the invested money by the shareholders (97% of it) is categorized as Loss Reserve or negative Retained Earning as it is called in North America. It’s not wise to think that the shareholders were unable to find any better opportunity to invest their 95 million Pounds in the UK. The only possible explanation is that Manoto TV is not a business venture for its shareholders and their objective and ambitions are something other than making money.
Despite weak financial performance, in the Strategic Report part of the Financial Statements of the company the directors said “[they] do not consider any major risks or uncertainties affecting the business”. They further added that “[they] have a reasonable expectation that the company has adequate resources to continue existence for the foreseeable future”. Meaning that the generous shareholders are ready to continue investing more money for advancing their goals which are definitely something other than making money.
The report above was originally published on Twitter by Mehran Farazmand. IC Journal translated the report to English. The original Farsi text is available below.
مهران فرازمند – توییتر:
و اما نکاتی درباره تلویزیون “من و تو”
1. آخرین گزارش مالی شرکت “شبکه تلویزیونی مرجان” یا Marjan Television Network Limited مالک کانال تلویزیونی “من و تو” برای سال مالی منتهی به سپتامبر 2017 در آدرس زیر منتشر شده است.
2. هزینه های موسسه در سال مالی اخیر 19 برابر درآمد آن و سال قبل 42 برابر درآمد آن بوده. به نظر می رسد کسب درآمد و سودآوری موضوع مهمی برای صاحبان این موسسه نیست. فقط در طی این دو سال اخیر مجموعا 36 میلیون پوند هزینه عملیاتی کرده اند و کمتر از 4 درصد آن درآمد داشته اند.
3. شاید تصور شود که با یک موسسه در حال ورشکستگی روبرو هستیم ولی اینچنین نیست. ترازنامه شرکت بدهی بزرگی را نشان نمی دهد. بدهی سال مالی اخیر در حد 2.7 میلیون پوند است و کمتر از 47 درصد دارایی های آن است. به عبارت ساده تر، سهامداران تامین کننده اصلی منابع مالی فعالیت هستند.
4. سهامداران (که اصولا نامی از آنها در گزارش نیامده) تاکنون حدود 95 میلیون پوند به این موسسه تزریق کرده اند که 92 میلیون پوند آن (97 درصد) به ضرر انباشته تبدیل شده. شاید گزینه بهتری برای سرمایه گزاری نداشته اند. شاید هم اهدافی ورای یک کسب و کار تجاری را دنبال می کنند.
5. علیرغم عملکرد مالی فوق العاده ضعیف، در آخرین پاراگرافهای گزارش استراتژیک آمده است که مدیران معتقدند شرکت با هیچ ریسک و عدم اطمینان عمده ای مواجه نیست و منابع کافی برای ادامه فعالیت عملیاتی در آینده را دارد. یعنی سهامدار کماکان آماده تزریق سخاوتمندانه سرمایه است.