MoviePass Parent Lost $137 Million in Q3, May Be Unable to Raise Additional Funds
By Todd Spangler
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Losses by ’ parent, Helios & Matheson Analytics, grew in the third quarter of 2018 to $137.2 million — and given its burn rate, the company might not be able to stay in business much longer.
The company generated $81.3 million in revenue for Q3, including $78.9 million from MoviePass subscriptions, it disclosed in a 10-Q filing Thursday . However, its cost of revenue for the period, nearly all of it related to MoviePass, was $109.6 million. The company also reported $95.6 million in interest expense (and a $45.5 million gain related to the “extinguishment of debt”).
Based on what it said was a significant decline in MoviePass subscribers during Q3 — after the service cut back the service from one movie daily to just three per month — HMNY took a goodwill-impairment charge of $38.5 million for the third quarter, which contributed to the net loss.
As of Nov. 12, reported $6.2 million in cash on hand and approximately $23.3 million on deposit held by credit-card processors, for a total of approximately $29.5 million. “Our cash and cash equivalents may not be sufficient to fund our operations for the near future and we may not be able to obtain additional financing,” the company noted in the 10-Q filing.
HMNY said it will try to continue funding operations by raising additional capital from sources such as sales of the company’s debt or equity securities, but added that there’s no assurance it will be successful. “Without raising additional capital, there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern through November 15, 2019,” the company said, although it might run out of runway far sooner than that.
“During this transitional period for Helios and MoviePass, we have been focused on reducing our burn rate and striving to improve our business model, and we are very encouraged by our Q3 financial results,” Ted Farnsworth, chairman and CEO of Helios, said in announcing the Q3 results.
Earlier this week, HMNY said its proposed 1-for-500 reverse stock split failed to get board approval . The company warned that its stock faced being delisted on the Nasdaq. HMNY’s stock was trading at 1.7 cents per share Thursday, giving the company an implied market valuation of under $25 million.
According to an Oct. 4 regulatory filing by Helios & Matheson, it raised $65 million in the third quarter via sales of its stock under an existing equity distribution agreement as well as “prepayments by investors of certain existing investor notes payable to the company.” At the same time, the company revealed that Canadian investment bank Canaccord Genuity terminated its equity distribution agreement, which had let HMNY sell the company’s shares.
Meanwhile, on Oct. 24, two board members of MoviePass — Chris Kelly and Maria Stipp — resigned from the board, HMNY disclosed in the 10-Q. Prior to his resignation, Kelly, who is CEO and principal investor in Fandor, was chairman of the MoviePass board.
Still pending is HMNY’s proposal, announced last month, to create a new subsidiary, MoviePass Entertainment Holdings, that would spin off the company’s shares of MoviePass and its other film-related assets (including Moviefone). The company would retain control of MoviePass Entertainment but says it is not sure if such a transaction is permitted under Delaware law.
Earlier this year, MoviePass touted that it had topped 2 million subscribers for its service letting customers see one movie per day for just $9.95 per month. But the surge in users caused an enormous cash drain on HMNY and the company was forced to take out several loans, and in August curtailed its subscription plans to limit customers to only three movies per month for the same price while limiting access to wide-release movies during peak demand.
HMNY’s subscription revenue for Q3 suggests MoviePass still had an average of 2.6 million customers in the quarter, although the company said it suffered a significant decline in subscribers during the period because of the change in the service. The company said subscribers on average saw 0.77 movies per month in September 2018, down dramatically from 2.23 movies per month in March 2018.
In addition to its financial woes, Helios & Matheson faces several investor lawsuits alleging the company made “materially false or misleading” statements. That includes a suit filed Sept. 20 by shareholder Yu Chen in the Supreme Court of the State of New York alleges claims for “breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against” officers of the company. HMNY has moved to consolidate the shareholder lawsuits.
HMNY also is the target of a fraud investigation by the New York Attorney General looking into whether it misled investors.
