22 employees and 25 creditors are affected, said the credit protectors from AKV, KSV1870 and Creditreform. The over-indebtedness amounts to around 1.6 million euros. A continuation and renovation are planned. For decades, the company and its predecessors left workers and entire camera teams to the ORF and other international broadcasters. At the end of the 1980s, series productions increasingly began to be produced for the ORF, and subsequently also documentaries for the international television market. In addition, reference was also made to business films for international companies, according to the Alpine Association of Creditors (AKV).
“At the beginning of the 2000s, people increasingly began to get involved in international co-productions, and since 2012 more documentaries have been produced here, with a focus on historical documentaries, nature films and documentaries about art and culture,” it said in the broadcast of the AKV. According to the information, international partners included ARTE, ZDF, ARD, WDR, SWR BR and France Television, CCTV, PBS and BBC4 in addition to ORF. At the same time, cooperations were entered into with production companies from Germany, England, Italy and France.
In the period from 2009 to 2017, pre tv also operated editing suites in the ORF center for the post-production of long formats that the ORF produced as in-house productions – for example “Schauplatz”, “Schauplatzgericht”, “konkret”, “Bürgerforum” and various shows. The company has also received various awards – there have been awards at various national and international film festivals, such as the “Golden Rose of Montreux”. In addition to the 22 employees, the company also employs 14 freelancers – five of whom are part-time.
Company no longer able to cover liquidity peaks
The cause of the insolvency is to be found in the significant decline in the area of personnel recruitment, team rental and editing suite rental. The company explained that the prices for the services provided could only have been increased slightly due to the pressure of competition.
“In order to improve the generated contribution margins, the focus was increasingly on international productions and co-productions. However, these involve a significantly longer throughput time, so that appropriate financing was required. For this reason, an AWS-guaranteed one-off loan was taken out in 2020 . Here, customers are primarily acquired through international trade fairs, which were suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but on the other hand there was a significant increase in production costs, so that the strategic realignment of the company was significantly negatively affected,” the AKV further described .
The company is now no longer able to cover liquidity peaks and make the repayments on the one-off loan that are due from the end of 2022. Insolvency is now imminent. According to the creditor protection agency, the liabilities amount to around EUR 1.9 million, of which around EUR 1.15 million are bank loans. The assets are valued at EUR 287,000 based on liquidation assumptions, of which a partial amount of EUR 140,000 is encumbered by rights to separate satisfaction. The free assets are thus 147,000 euros.
A new investor or the sale of a part of the business will probably be necessary for a continuation. The “silvering of unfinished productions” should also be considered – as well as “capacity adjustments”. A restructuring plan with a total quota of 20 percent within two years is offered.
Source: Nachrichten
