Village Roadshow $33.5m Profit 1H2013

Cinema distributor and theme park owner Village Roadshow (ASX:VRL) have announced its half year financial results to shareholders in the Australian stock market.

• Village Roadshow Net Profit $33.5 million, up 18.4 percent
• VRL Revenue was $480 million, from $470 million.
• EPS of 21.8 cents, up from 18.7 cents
• Village Roadshow owns 3 Gold Coast theme parks including Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild.
• Visits to the three theme parks was up 550,000, or 26.8 per cent, which delivered a 9.4 percent rise in total revenue.
• Village Roadshow chief executive Graham Burke said, "The world is in the mood to go out, to indulge themselves in a little pleasure and escape from worries. The theme parks have once again demonstrated they are a winning formula and the appetite for filmed entertainment appears unquenchable."
• VRL has a $120 million Wet'n'Wild project in Sydney which is on track for completion in December.
• Village owns cinemas in Australia, Singapore and USA.
• Village Roadshow stocks were placed in a trading halt after an announcement by the company's major shareholders (including Village Roadshow Corporation (VRC) and directors Robert Kirby and Graham Burke) of their intention to sell 11 million shares or 7 percent of their stake in the company. They will remain 44 percent shareholders after the sale. The intention of the sale was to increase the company's free float and market liquidity of its security. The sale will be managed by Deutsche Bank and executed via a book build.
• VRL forecast for full year operating profit at between $55 million and $59 million.
• Village Roadshow have declared an Interim dividend fully-franked at 13 cents per share, up from 12 cents.