Eros Share Discussion Threads

[foot in mouth] 19/10/2016 03:09

October 18, 2016 08:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time

ISLE OF MAN, United Kingdom--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eros International Plc (NYSE: EROS) (“Eros”), a leading global company in the Indian film entertainment industry, today announced that Eros Now, its cutting edge digital over-the-top (OTT) platform, now has mobile billing integration capabilities with major telecom operators in UAE and Qatar.

Mobile billing integration is at the heart of Eros Now’s penetration strategy to enable consumers to experience the best of Indian entertainment, which includes Bollywood and regional content across major networks and devices, and will further enhance the platforms ability to monetize its user base. The tie-ups in the Middle East are with the leading local telecom operators including Ooredoo in Kuwait and Qatar, and Du in the UAE. Additional telecom partnerships throughout the region are currently being negotiated.

Consumption of Bollywood content, including Hindi movies, music and TV series in the Middle East has been on the rise along with it also becoming one of the leading regions in the world in terms of smart device adoption. With an increasing number of handheld device users, the trend of online content consumption has markedly increased in the region. The South Asian diaspora in both of these markets is estimated to be over 50% of the population, which represents over five million people. In addition to the South Asian diaspora, Bollywood content continues to be popular with the local Middle Eastern population in dubbed and subtitled formats – both of which are offered on Eros Now.

Rishika Lulla-Singh, CEO Eros Digital commented, “As market leaders in the film business, Eros has always strived to bring users the best of Indian entertainment, offering each the same unified experience across screens and networks. Eros Now’s philosophy is to be platform agnostic and embrace the very best in technology as we continuously enhance our content offering. Recognizing the growing demand among Middle Eastern viewers for online video content, especially Bollywood entertainment, these mobile partnerships will give consumers entertainment and easy pay access, whenever and wherever they want it.”

About Eros Now

Eros Now is Eros International Plc’s leading on-demand Bollywood entertainment network accessible anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Eros Now offers its 49.6 million plus registered users, across 135 countries, the promise of endless entertainment hosting the largest library of films (Eros Now has rights to over 5,000 films), as well as premium television shows, music videos and audio tracks, unmatched in quantity and quality. Eros Now will soon launch compelling original drama series for its viewers. Compelling product features such as offline viewing where premium subscribers can download the content and view it when not connected to the Internet make Eros Now a unique offering with focus on user experience.

Eros Now is available on Apple and Android platforms and has integration deals with Airtel, Idea and now Reliance Jio and several other operators internationally. For further information, please visit: www.erosnow.com.

About Eros International Plc

hxxp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161018006033/en/Eros-International-Announces-Mobile-Billing-Integration-Major

[spectoacc] 14/10/2016 14:24

Fascinating! As an ERO1 holder, I've no idea where a spin-out would leave the bonds.

[rivaldo] 14/10/2016 14:05

Intriguing to see an EROS director heading up a new $100 billion (yes, billion) tech investment fund for Softbank based in London:



"The fund will have $25 billion from Softbank and $45 billion from the Saudi wealth fund, to begin with, and will make its $100 (billion) investment over a five year period."

Gets you wondering whether an EROSNOW spin-off or other value crystallisation event might be a possibility with such backing?

[rivaldo] 10/10/2016 14:35

Increased institutional interest:



"13F Action: Eros Intl Plc (EROS) Shareholder Paradice Investment Management LLC Has Boosted Its Holding
October 10, 2016

Paradice Investment Management Llc increased its stake in Eros Intl Plc (EROS) by 20.26% based on its latest 2016Q2 regulatory filing with the SEC. Paradice Investment Management Llc bought 402,886 shares as the company’s stock rose 42.59% with the market. The institutional investor held 2.39 million shares of the movies and entertainment company at the end of 2016Q2, valued at $27.52M, up from 1.99M at the end of the previous reported quarter. Paradice Investment Management Llc who had been investing in Eros Intl Plc for a number of months, seems to be bullish on the $908.53 million market cap company. The stock closed at $15.85 during the last session. It is down 70.80% since March 7, 2016 and is uptrending. It has outperformed by 63.21% the S&P500.

Paradice Investment Management Llc is a Colorado-based institutional investor with more than $705.02 million AUM in September, 2014....."

[spectoacc] 23/9/2016 10:10

Interesting; ErosNow is going to kill the shorts if it ever takes off. We must be due another anonymous bear note soon!

[speedsgh] 23/9/2016 09:45

Eros International Plc Raises $30 Million From Two Existing Top 10 Shareholders -

Eros International Plc (NYSE:EROS) (“Eros”), a leading global company in the Indian film entertainment industry, today announced that two existing top ten institutional shareholders of the Company have increased their holdings in Eros. The Company raised approximately $30 million through a private placement, the proceeds of which will be primarily used to fund further expansion of Eros Now, the Company’s OTT platform.

Jyoti Deshpande, Group CEO & MD Eros International commented, “Our vision to transform Eros from a leading film studio to a leading digital company with a global footprint is well underway with Eros Now, our OTT platform crossing one million paid subscribers as of June 30, 2016. Our ownership of content and our strong balance sheet should provide tailwinds to grow the Eros Now subscriber base from one million to ten million and eventually hundred million within the next decade.”

[rivaldo] 22/9/2016 15:41

Good interview with the CEO - one of the principal reasons I loiek EROS is that they simply do not make losses on films any more, or at least not material ones, due to their pre-sales and budgeting model.

And of course there's EROSNOW to come....

[blusteradjuster] 13/9/2016 20:39

$150m - $200m annually - with little in the way of incremental cost.

Would be very profitable - how much of that would flow to Eros?

Little wonder that shady US-based outfits are seeking to bring them down now..



Eros Now has a 5-year target of at least 15-20 million subscribers worldwide with a blended annual ARPU of $5 from India and $30 internationally with 80 percent of the target subscribers from India and the remaining 20% internationally.

[rivaldo] 13/9/2016 09:51

Nice bounce yesterday.

The Q1 conference call transcript is well worth a read:



Extract:

"We have some clear targets for Eros Now, which I would now like to share. We would like to achieve 2 million paying subscribers by the end of fiscal ’17 and 5 million paying subscribers by the end of fiscal ’18. Eros Now has a five-year target of at least 15 to 20 million subscribers worldwide with a blended annual ARPU of conservatively $5 from India and $30 internationally, with 80% of the target subscribers from India and the remaining 20% from international markets."

[spectoacc] 12/9/2016 13:25

@tightfist re ERO1 - the bonds tanked way more than the shares throughout the "bear attacks", totally illogical when you think about it - the bonds rank ahead of the shares.

Personally I wonder if a "slight miss" set of results gives them a more "real" feel!

Either way, if EROS isn't a house of cards/pack of lies, then the return on the bonds out to 2021 redemption is almost unrivalled - find me another GRY that good. And if you think the bears may be correct about some dodgy elements to the accounts, then "long bonds, short shares" is surely the trade.

[rivaldo] 12/9/2016 13:18

I see that Jefferies liked the results and have increased their price target to $20 (from $17):



"Jefferies Raises Price Target on Eros Int'l (EROS) to $20 Following 1Q Report
September 12, 2016 7:52 AM EDT

Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating on Eros International Plc (NYSE: EROS), and raised the price target to $20.00 (from $17.00), following the company's 1Q earnings report. EROS reported revenues of $71M, ahead of $65M expectations. F2Q revenue and adjusted EBITDA estimates are $61M and $10M vs. $70M and $5M.

Analyst John Janedis commented, "EROS reported F1Q rev and EBITDA of $71M and $18.2M, above our $65M / $16.9M expectations. The beat was in large part driven by a more favorable mix of high budget films, and the resumption of catalog sales - although this has also resulted in higher DSOs. Most importantly, mgmt increased its F17 Eros Now sub target to 2M (as F1Q reported 1.1M already tops prev guid. of 1M).""

[tightfist] 12/9/2016 13:13

Thanks Rivaldo. I saw that they had missed forecasts, but tried to put some logic into why the bonds had been relatively heavily bought. I guess there was a tip, etc somewhere.

I don't follow the company closely (I tend to invest on the easy but boring LSE) but it's good to see how they are developing the business.

Cheers, tightfist

[rivaldo] 12/9/2016 12:33

EROS apparently missed for the quarter on bottom lime profit, though the numbers looked pretty good in themselves. The forecasts must have been somewhat overdone imo.

Hi tightfist, I wouldn't have thought EROS would contemplate bond buybacks for a while - presumably their priority is to grow the group, further invest in EROSNOW, build up the Chinese JV etc. JMO anyway.

Interesting point here that UTV have withdrawn from the market, leaving EROS in an improved position:



"Deshpande said that Eros would remain involved in production and production finance, despite the recent withdrawal from the sector by Disney’s UTV unit.

“We have a strong greenlighting process where we evaluate all kinds of parameters – presales, potential revenues, genre, timing of the release. We’ve built a science around it and we try and not to greenlight films which have to be a blockbuster for us to make our money back, … we are willing to pass on high profile films if we have to overpay for it. Some of the others are just going through that learning curve now, but what it has done is it has put a very nice downward pressure on talent costs and content costs,” said Deshpande on the conference call, transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

“We’re already at a stage where we pretty much manage portfolio and we’re not sort of dependent on one or two films for our revenues. (Our) Hindi and regional slate split across high-medium-low is a solid strategy, and content driven films are getting more backing than just pure talent-driven films.”"

[tightfist] 12/9/2016 10:32

Hi Rivaldo,

Thanks for the numbers summary. It's strange how the NYSE shares and the LSE Bonds continue to act disconnected; Friday's Bond rise & volume were remarkable, whilst the the share price had dropped.

An idle thought: Is there reason to believe that the company cash-flow may enable a bond buy-back programme soon?

Cheers, tightfist

[markhowes] 09/9/2016 21:58

Hmmm - market didn't like them numbers. Down over 10% at the close.

[rivaldo] 09/9/2016 13:40

The Q1 results look excellent - the "strongest first quarter performance in terms of Revenue and EBTIDA since being listed on the NYSE over three years ago".

Plus there is $15m free cash inflow and debt reduction.

Plus 1.1m+ paying subscribers to EROSNOW, and almost 50m registered users:



"First Quarter Ended June 30, 2016

• Revenues increased by 42.2% to $71.1 million, compared to $50.0 million in the prior year period
• Operating profit increased by 75.6% to $7.2 million, compared to $4.1 million in the prior year period
• Adjusted EBITDA increased by 56% to $18.1 million, compared to $11.6 million in the prior year period
• Net Debt reduced by 5.6% to $121.9 million as compared to $129.1 million as of March 31, 2016.
• Free cash flow increased by $15 million from negative $13.1 million for the period ended June 30, 2015 to $1.9 million for the period ended June 30, 2016."

[speedsgh] 09/9/2016 13:33

Eros International Plc Reports Results for First Quarter FY 2017 -

[speedsgh] 06/9/2016 13:31

Eros Now Launches eBuzz Exclusively on Apple TV -

[rivaldo] 30/8/2016 14:02

Good to see EROS partnering with the likes of Viacom for a new project - this is the sort of relationship which may bear fruit in the future in terms of potential takeover interest if it goes well:

[spectoacc] 25/8/2016 16:33

Thanks @rivaldo.

[speedsgh] 25/8/2016 15:20

Eros International to Report First Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results on September 9, 2016 -

Eros International Plc (NYSE:EROS) (“Eros”), a leading global company in the Indian film entertainment industry, announced today that it will issue a press release to report its results for first quarter fiscal year 2017 before the market opens on Friday, September 9, 2016. The Company will host a conference call that day at 8:30 AM ET.

[smurfy2001] 25/8/2016 14:28

Did you get an response from IR and who did you email as my response from them regarding interactive investor was prompt?

[markhowes] 25/8/2016 12:25

And you believe that, do you?