UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C., 20549
FORM 6-K
REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15D-16
UNDER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the month of December, 2007
PEACE ARCH ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC. |
(Translation of Registrants name into English) |
407-124 Merton Street, Toronto, Ontario M4S 2Z2 |
(Address of principal executive office) |
[Indicate by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual reports under cover of Form 20F or Form 40-F.
Form 20-F
þ
Form 40-F
o
[Indicate by check mark whether the registrant by furnishing the information contained in this Form is also thereby furnishing the information to the Commission pursuant to rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Yes
o
No
þ
This Form 6-K shall be incorporated by reference into the Registration Statement on Form S-8 (File No. 333-134552) and any other Registration Statement filed by the Registrant which by its terms automatically incorporates the Registrant's filings and submissions with the SEC under Sections 13(a), 13(c) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
(If Yes is marked, indicate below the file number assigned to the registrant in connection with Rule 12g3-2(b):
82-_______________
Final Transcript
TRILOGY CAPITAL: Peace Arch Conference Call
December 20, 2007/10:30 a.m. CDT
SPEAKERS
Michael Briola Executive Vice President
Jeff Sagansky - CEO
John Flock President & COO
ANALYSTS
Steven Gold Claris Securities
Vince Mogul Westwind Partners
David Zelekov Laidlaw & Company
Austin Parlette Mutual Securities
Mark Maroly Don Allen Financials
Aneet Szachesny Conaris Capital Management
David Engel Private investor
Bill Anderson Recreation Realty
PRESENTATION
Moderator
Welcome to the Peace Arch Entertainment conference call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Later well conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, the conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Mr. Michael Briola. Please go ahead.
TRILOGY CAPITAL
Host: Michael Briola
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M. Briola
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Im Michael Briola, Executive Vice President of Trilogy Capital Partners. Im pleased to welcome you to todays Peace Arch Entertainment conference call.
Before we get started, I would like to read a cautionary statement. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements made by the senior management of Peace Arch that involve risks and uncertainties that could affect Peace Archs ability to achieve anticipated financial results. Additionally, certain statements contained in this call that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Peace Arch Entertainment intends that forward-looking statements in the call be subject to the Safe Harbor thereby. Peace Archs actual entertainments could differ materially from the results projected in or implied by such forward-looking statements as the result of the risk factors, including the risk factors set forth in the companys filings with the SEC.
Additionally, if you are one of the several U.S.-based shareholders with an investment in ContentFilms, we are requesting that you kindly remove yourself from this conference call now. Please be advised that Peace Arch will not be able to answer any questions regarding the companys year-end filing.
With that, Id like to introduce Mr. Jeff Sagansky, Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. John Flock, President and Chief Operating Officer of Peace Arch Entertainment.
J. Sagansky
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. We announced earlier today that we had signed an LOI to make an offer to acquire ContentFilm. The proposed acquisition would create a powerful sales and distribution company with a large library of film and TV shows. The two companies are very complementary in they fit together in a way that the combination will create opportunities that neither alone would have. What I would like to do briefly is highlight to you the many advantages of the proposed transaction.
First, the combination would create a much enhanced North American DVD operation. ContentFilm owns Allumination Filmworks. Its a wholly owned subsidiary, which is a DVD distributor in the U.S. with a direct vendor relationship with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart still accounts for almost 40% of the U.S. DVD sales. Outside of the major studios, there are only three other independents that go direct to Wal-Mart.
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Allumination also has direct relationships with Hollywood Videos, Sams Club, Movie Gallery, and a host of other retailers. As you know, Peace Arch entered the U.S. home video business early this year with the acquisition of Trinity Home Entertainment, but combining these two U.S. businesses really supercharges the entire video business. Peace Arch would be a major independent with this acquisition in both the United States and Canada in the home video area.
The second benefit of the proposed combination would be the creation of an industry-leading TV and film sales company, powered by a very large library. Contents TV sales arm, Fireworks, controls the library of almost 3,000 hours of high quality TV series programming. In addition, Content also owns and distributes 120 feature films.
Peace Arch, on the other hand, has a library of more than 600 feature films and 250 hours of lifestyle programming. Peace Arch, unlike Content, is also acquiring and producing about 50 features a year.
So you put these two companies together. You have a significant sales company, powered by a library of series, movies, reality, and documentary. The breadth of product and the size of the TV sales operation will create lots of opportunities to distribute product for producers who are really looking for that broad, distribution platform.
One of the factors that most excites us about the proposed combination is the executive talent that we would bring into Peace Arch. CEO John Schmidt is a very savvy entrepreneur, who has a strong finance background and was instrumental in building October Films prior to him building up ContentFilms. Greg Phillips, who runs Fireworks, is acknowledged as one of the most capable sales chiefs in the global TV marketplace. In addition, Kerry McCluggage, the chairman of Allumination, Geoff Webb, Contents CFO, and Jamie Carmichael, who heads Contents International film sales would also be key players in the new company.
While the principle reason for doing this deal would be to get our distribution platform to scale and to create a more multi-faceted company, theres also the benefit of cost savings in everything from office space to public company costs to redundant personnel. Now by U.K. securities rules, I cant tell you on this call, what those cost savings will be. Well have a later release to that effect, but the savings are significant. Theyre
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real; theyre achievable. We already have a detailed plan for how we can get there.
Getting to a firm offer is going to require bank financing to support our bid. We have strong interest from a bank very familiar and supporter of this transaction and the two companies. Over the next six weeks, were going to work with them to get a loan guaranty done.
Executing this deal will require approximately $35 million to buy half of the ordinary shares that will not roll into Peace Arch shares. In addition, Content has a debt of approximately $22 million that will also be part of the new facility.
So we still have a lot of work to do, including some diligence on both sides, but if we can get to a financed offer in the next, say, six to eight weeks, we hopefully will close the entire transaction by the end of March.
Both of these companies are very excited by what could be created here. Certainly, this will be the largest Canadian production/distribution company and one of the strongest independents anywhere.
So, with that, I will take questions.
Moderator
We have a question from Steven Gold with Claris Securities. Please go ahead.
S. Gold
Just a question here on the gross margins, theyre noticeably higher than what were accustomed to seeing in North America. Can you talk to the reason for that? Is it either on the home entertainment side or perhaps on the TV sales side?
J. Sagansky
This is Contents gross margins?
S. Gold
Right.
J. Sagansky
The business that Content is principally in is TV sales, film sales. Theyre not in the production business, which tends to have lower margins. Thats principally the reason. Theyre in the video business as we are. In general, when youre distributing library that you already own, the gross margins are much higher.
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S. Gold
Just as a follow-up to that, as these two companies get integrated under the assumption that the financing comes through and so forth, is that something you can kind of see as the new co, less of a focus on the actual production, more so on the higher margin business?
J. Sagansky
We will continue to produce, but actually, thats going to enhance the whole thing because when youre going out with library product and youve got new production behind it, both series production as well as movie production, it really just helps the library sales a great deal. So were going to be in the production business and probably even more importantly in the acquisition business.
S. Gold
If I could just sneak one more question in here, from a financial perspective and a tax position, maybe this is a better question for Mara, but in terms of taxes over the next year, you guys actually paying taxes halfway through 2008. Can you give us some sort of guidance on that? Is there any sort of tax credits that you can get as a result of this?
J. Sagansky
There are some tax credits. Content has considerable tax loss carry forwards, but I am not sure I can talk directly to that on this call.
Moderator
I have a question from Ben Mogil with Westwind. Please go ahead.
B. Mogil
A couple questions, if we look at Fireworks, and I saw this experience with Hawaiian Films after they bought the Canadian rights to Fireworks, Ken West hadnt done much with it, so you saw the initial burst of licensing. And then after a while, it trailed off as the first cycle licensing was largely complete. Can you give us the sense of the Fireworks International Library; where they are in your view of the licensing, how much of the products that had first cycle licenses done already, how much is left to do, if you will?
J. Sagansky
Youd have to ask them directly, but weve obviously done a great deal of diligence. What excites us about the Fireworks operation is they have a deep library of product that is going on third and fourth cycle. Its a lot of action, adventure product, which you can license again and again and again.
I think what really has impressed us about Fireworks is, hes got a whole bunch of Greg Phillips and Content has got a whole bunch of new series that theyre licensing from by the way, Canadian producers, as well as U.S. producers. So the mix is going much more every year toward the
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licensing of first cycle and newer product. And as the older product continues to get licensed, but certainly not at the rates it was in first and second cycle, the mix is going to this newer product. Thats whats fantastic about this.
Outside of the major studios, Content is probably the premier series distributor in the world outside of the studios. For all those independents that dont want to get lost in the studio distribution, and the studios obviously always want to distribute their product first, the stuff that they own, this is really the most viable alternative.
B. Mogil
So when I look at the LTN numbers as of September that Content put out today and I compare them against the March numbers, you saw revenue flat, but you saw obviously the EBIT DA kick down. Is that a function of Allumination entirely, or is there some cycling off of Fireworks?
J. Sagansky
I think youd have to ask them. I think they told you there were some seasonal issues there. I think most of that was Allumination.
Moderator
Our next question is from David Zelekov with Laidlaw and Company. Please go ahead.
D. Zelekov
Hello. Is the purchase or the pending acquisition of Content, are they currently earning money? Would that be accretive to your earnings? Can you give us any guidance on full year revenue and/or earnings?
J. Sagansky
I cant give you guidance on either theirs or ours. If you look at what they did last year, they did about $40 million in top line and about $8 million to $8.5 million in EBIT DA. Were very confident about their business, their business model going forward. Theres a very solid profitability there. Theres good margins. Then youve got the savings, which were going to detail in a later release. So we wouldnt do this unless we thought it was very accretive.
Moderator
We have another question from Austin Parlette with Mutual Securities. Please go ahead.
A. Parlette
Does this acquisition and all this work that youre doing have anything to do with the delay in the earnings release at all?
J. Sagansky
No, it really has nothing to do with it at all. Weve been talking to Content off and on I would say for about a year-and-a-half. This just all
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happened to come together now. I think weve talked about the reason for the delay in earnings, but I will state it again for anybody that hasnt heard.
And that is we had a departure of Gary Howsam in the middle of the audit. The audit was difficult to begin with because in the last year, weve acquired three private companies: Trinity, Duffer Gate, and Castle Hill, all of which had different accounting systems and different financial reporting systems. The auditors have had to get their hands around all of that. Then in light of the departure, the board asked the auditor to really give us a full review of everything. Thats what the auditors are doing. So we expect that process to be done in the next few days, but we want to get to the finish line as much as you do.
Moderator
Next question is from the line of Mark Maroly with Don Allen Financials. Please go ahead.
M. Maroly
Ive looked at the three deals you completed earlier in the year. You didnt announce them while they were pending. Any particular reason why youre announcing this before its actually done?
J. Sagansky
Well, we actually did announce that we had LOIs out there, pending diligence. We actually did announce that, that way. In fact, John Flock do you want to talk to that?
J. Flock
Historically, weve announced the deals when we signed binding letters of intent. Were a little more restricted in this deal because U.K. law governs. So we have to do an initial announcement when weve negotiated the letter, but we havent yet signed a formal offer, which is the next step in the process. Fundamentally, were at the same stage we were in the prior deals, which is weve negotiated the price. We know what the plan is. Theres still diligence to be done; we have to finalize our financing. Basically, weve announced it at the same point in the transaction as we always have historically.
J. Sagansky
The other thing is that with the financing requirement here when we go out there and secure the financing, we didnt want this to leak out while were looking for and securing the financing. So we wanted to be very cautious about that. By the way, Content wanted to announce this now at this stage as well.
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Moderator
I have a question from Aneet Szachesny with Canaris Capital Management. Please go ahead.
A. Szachesny
Hello, guys. Just a quick question, can you just broadly explain how this will work with the Trinity acquisition because these guys are both distributors, correct?
J. Sagansky
Thats right.
A. Szachesny
How do you see them working together? I havent done too much work on Content this morning.
J. Sagansky
Under the proposed transaction, it would all be one North American operation. The key thing to know about Trinity is that the primary vendor relationship they have is with Aphis, which is the Army/Air Force stores where they have a direct relationship. They take in a lot of independents. Trinity doesnt go direct to Wal-Mart. Theyre just really opening a lot of the retail accounts that Allumination has already had in place for years. So theyre actually extremely complementary in terms of their vendor relationships.
Then in putting the two companies together, I think that theyll really be a full distributor across the whole array of U.S. retailers, big boxes and otherwise. I think with this, we could be seeing that a lot of independents will be distributing through us. As I said, theres only three other independents that go direct to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart still controls the bulk of DVD sales. Theyve got a 40% market share. So if you go direct with them and youve got the product (new product that were generating, product that can be acquired), it can be an extremely good business.
By the way, Ill add one other thing: we have a direct relationship with Wal-Mart in Canada. It has accounted for, largely, the rapid growth of our Canadian business. Next question.
Moderator
We have a question with David Engel, a Private Investor. Please go ahead.
D. Engel
Quick question, are the management of Peace Arch investors in ContentFilm historically? If so, are there any special precautions that need to be done to avoid the appearance of self-dealings?
J. Sagansky
We cant. Im an investor in Content. I had to abstain from really voting on this at all, which I have done. As I said, though, the two companies have probably been talking for a year-and-a-half. They know each other
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extremely well; they know each others business very well. I think Im the only big shareholder on both sides. I had to abstain from any vote on the consideration or the deal making. That was really led by Drew Craig.
Moderator
Our next question is from Joyce Anderson with Recreation Realty. Please go ahead.
B. Anderson
Actually, this is Bill Anderson from Recreation Realty. Were private shareholders of Peace Arch. The question that we had had really was and maybe this question should be directed to John. Im with the perception that the company about, when were finally going to get past that drag and the negative with regard to the incident with Gary.
J. Flock
Well get our year end out. The Content acquisition, if it happens, is the transformative transaction for the company, not withstanding whats happened to the share price in the last couple of months since Garys incident. Its been a very solid business. I think we recover very quickly after the calendar year-end. People come back from the holidays. They begin to look at our numbers again, and it reaffirms the story weve been telling all year, which is the company has been growing rapidly. Weve been diversifying our revenue streams.
If we close the Content deal, which we very much expect to do, its really blue skies for the company in terms of just stepping up the scale of our business, spreading out our operations even further, building distribution strength, attracting new projects. I think, overall, once people begin to digest what weve done in 2007, how the management changes have affected the company in a positive way, what impact Content is likely to have on the future of Peace Arch, I think people are going to be extremely positive about the prospects for the company.
Moderator
We have our next question from Ben Mogil with Westwind Partners. Please go ahead.
B. Mogil.
Hello, guys. So I know that theres a number of shares, which will be issued are up to 19.5 million. Can you guys talk about Syntek? Are they taking all cash, or are they taking some shares? What about both Jeff and Kerry, have you guys announced which form of consideration youre going to be taking?
J. Sagansky
I cant talk for Kerry, but I am definitely going to roll whatever I have. I feel very strongly about the transaction. I cant talk for Syntek, but again,
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were not going to go ahead as a condition of our offer. At least 50% of the shareholders have to roll into Peace Arch and were very confident were going to get there.
Moderator
We have another question from Mark Maroly with Don Allen Financial. Please go ahead.
M. Maroly
I dont want to beat a dead horse here, but almost for a month now of what Ive been getting conveyed to me is, youre 99% of the way done your audit. Is there any way to provide any color at this time as to what the one percent hang-up is? Can you provide any color at all on that?
J. Sagansky
We cant. You know why. We just cant talk to it. I wish I could, but Im not allowed to. We cant do it.
Moderator
Our next question is from Aneet Szachesny with Canaris Capital Management. Please go ahead.
A. Szachesny
Hello, guys. Getting back to the distribution stuff, in regards to that, who else are the big independent distributors? Would it just be Lions Gate? How does Content stack up ?
J. Sagansky
The big independents are Lions Gate, which is the largest, and then, the next one would be Anchor Bay, which is now owned by Liberty. So theres one other that I know of that has a direct relationship with Wal-Mart. We wont be as big as Lions Gate, but in the proposed combination, wed certainly be in the Anchor Bay area, so wed be significant. The key thing here is that when youve got a full array of direct relationships in the retail area, and then youve got the ability to acquire and make new programming, youve got a very, very strong independent.
The third independent, by the way, is Genius. Youve seen whats happened to them this year. Theyve done extremely well in building their business. Again, theyve built it on the back of the Weinstein product, again, through acquisition. So the direct relationships are the key thing.
Moderator
We have no further questions at this time.
J. Sagansky
Thanks, everyone.
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Host: Michael Briola
December 20, 2007/10:30 a.m. CDT
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Moderator
That ends our question and answer session. That does conclude the conference for today. The replay will be available today after 1 p.m. until noon on January 20th of 2008 at midnight. You may access the Executive Replay Service at anytime by dialing 1-800-475-6701 and entering the access code 903802. International participants may dial in by using 1-320-365-3844. That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for your participation and using AT&Ts Executive Teleconference Service. You may now disconnect.
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
Peace Arch Entertainment Group Inc. |
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(Registrant)
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Date |
December 21, 2007 |
By |
"Mara Di Pasquale" |
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(Signature)* |
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Mara Di Pasquale, Chief Financial Officer |
*Print the name and title under the signature of the signing officer.
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