As recently as last month, government officials in the Malaysian state of Serawak, Borneo, told local media that their state needs to build a new film production facility like the Iskandar Malaysia…
& Media, a Singaporean company specializing in Chinese-language content, announced that it had bought an 80% stake in SMS, an intermediary company, for $2 million . GHY and SMS must then spend a further $6 million to buy 100% of IMS from state-backed investment vehicle Granatum Ventures. Total $8 million.
The end of December valuation compares very badly with the cost to the Malaysian taxpayer. When IMS opened in 2014, local and trade reports announced that the facility had required an investment of $120-$170 million. Even using the lower construction cost figure, the devaluation of an asset from $120 million to $7.3 million represents a more than 90% destruction of shareholders’ value in the eight years since IMS opened. The annual profit and loss accounts are not public information.
Even before opening, the studio initiative seemed to be endowed with two significant advantages. The first, was the signing in 2009 of a partnership with the U.K.’s Pinewood Studios group. With roles officially spanning consultancy, brand and marketing services, Pinewood was involved in the design, construction and initial management of the Malaysian facility.
Lake was, however, able to suggest that the location incentive would make IMS competitive in terms of price, and able to claim that, given the range of facilities within IMS, it would be possible to walk in with a script and walk out with a finished product ready for broadcast or theatrical release. The local skills would increase over time as more movies and series shot there.
Thailand has recently hosted Netflix’s “Extraction,” Apple TV+’s “Shantaram,” Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” and Disney’s “Miss Marvel” and it succeeded in operating production facilities through much of the COVID pandemic.was both a setback and a surprise. Whether Pinewood failed to bring in as much business as Johor officials and Khazanah investors had hoped or whether the facilities giant, which itself had a change of management, encountered specific local issues is cloaked in omerta.
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