Organization and Business |
12 Months Ended |
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Dec. 31, 2022 | |
| Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract] | |
| Organization and Business | Organization and Business Organization and Nature of Business
Genius Brands International, Inc. (“we,” “us,” “our,” or the “Company”) is a global content and brand management company that creates, produces, licenses, and broadcasts timeless and educational, multimedia animated content for children. Led by experienced industry personnel, the Company distributes its content primarily on streaming platforms and television and licenses its properties for a broad range of consumer products based on the Company’s characters. The Company is a “work for hire” producer for many of the streaming outlets and animated content intellectual property ("IP") holders. In the children’s media sector, the Company’s portfolio features “content with a purpose” for toddlers to tweens, providing enrichment as well as entertainment. With the exception of the Company's recent acquisition of Wow Unlimited Media Inc. and related titles, the Company’s programs, along with those programs it licenses, are being broadcast in the United States on the Company’s wholly-owned advertisement supported video on demand (“AVOD”) service, its free ad supported TV ("FAST") channels, and its subscription video on demand (“SVOD”) outlets, Kartoon Channel! and Ameba. These streaming services are available on Apple TV, Apple iOS, Android TV, Android mobile, Amazon Prime, Amazon Fire, Tubi, Roku, Comcast, Cox, Dish/Sling, Xumo, Pluto, Samsung Smart TVs, LG Smart TVs, as well as YouTube, among other platforms. The Company's in-house owned and produced animated shows include Stan Lee’s Superhero Kindergarten starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Llama Llama starring Jennifer Garner, Rainbow Rangers, KC Pop Quiz, and the upcoming Shaq’s Garage starring Shaquille O’Neal, scheduled to debut in the second quarter of 2023. The Company’s library titles include the award-winning Baby Genius, adventure comedy Thomas Edison’s Secret Lab®, and Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaires Club, created with and starring iconic investor Warren Buffett, Team Zenko Go!, Reboot, Bee & PuppyCat: Lazy in Space and Castlevania.
The Company also licenses its programs to other services worldwide, in addition to the operation of its own channels, including but not limited to Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, and satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasters around the world.
Through the Company’s investments in Germany’s Your Family Entertainment (“YFE”), a publicly traded company on the Frankfurt Exchange (RTV-Frankfurt), it has gained access to one of the largest animation catalogues in Europe with over 50 titles consisting of over 1,600 episodes, and a global distribution network which currently covers over 60 territories worldwide.
Through the ownership of WOW Unlimited Media Inc. (“Wow”), the Company established an affiliate relationship with Mainframe Studios, which is one of the largest animation producers in the world. In addition, Wow owns Frederator Networks Inc. (“Frederator”) and its Channel Frederator Network, the largest animation focused multi-channel network on YouTube with over 2,500 channels.
The Company has rights to a select amount of valuable IP, including among them a controlling interest in Stan Lee Universe (“SLU”), through which it controls the name, likeness, signature, and all consumer product and IP rights to Stan Lee (the “Stan Lee Assets”).
The Company also owns Beacon Media Group ("Beacon"), the largest media buying service for children in North America. Beacon represents over 30 major toy companies, including Playmobile, Bandai Toys, Bazooka, Moose Toys, and JAKKS Pacific.
In addition, the Company owns the Canadian company Ameba Inc. (“Ameba”), which distributes a profitable SVOD service for kids, and has become the focal point of revenue growth for Genius Networks’ subscription offering.
The Company and its affiliates provide world class animation production studios, a catalogue representing thousands of hours of premium global content for children, a broadcast system for delivering that content and an in-house consumer products licensing infrastructure to fully exploit the content.
Recent Developments
On February 6, 2023, the Company's board of directors approved a 1-for-10 reverse stock split of the Company's outstanding shares of common stock. The reverse stock split was effected on February 10, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. At the effective time, every 10 issued and outstanding shares of the Company's common stock were converted into 1 share
of common stock. Any fractional shares of common stock resulting from the reverse stock split were rounded up to the nearest whole post-split share and no shareholders received cash in lieu of fractional shares. The par value of each share of common stock remained unchanged. The reverse stock split proportionately reduced the number of shares of authorized common stock from 400,000,000 to 40,000,000 shares. The reverse stock split also applied to common stock issuable upon the exercise of the Company's outstanding warrants and stock options. The reverse stock split did not affect the authorized preferred stock of 10,000,001 shares. Unless noted, all references to shares of common stock and per share amounts contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K have been retroactively adjusted to reflect a 1-for-10 reverse stock split.
2022 Investments
On January 13, 2022, the Company acquired Ameba and gained access to its kid-safe platform technology and 13,000 episodes of owned and licensed content. Refer to Note 3 for additional details.
On April 6, 2022, the Company completed the acquisition of Wow. On October 26, 2021, the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, 1326919 B.C. LTD., a corporation existing under the laws of the Province of British Columbia and Wow, entered into an Arrangement Agreement to effect a plan of arrangement under the arrangement provisions of Part 9, Division 5 of the Business Corporations Act. The Company purchased 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Wow, including Wow's subsidiary Frederator, for $38.3 million in cash and 1,105,708 shares of the Company's common stock. The plan of arrangement and final agreement, together with the acquisition of Wow’s Mainframe Studios and its subsidiary Frederator, are referred to as the “Wow Acquisition.” Refer to Note 3 for additional details.
On December 1, 2021, the Company completed a $6.8 million investment in YFE. In exchange for $3.4 million in cash and 228,127 shares of the Company’s common stock (valued at approximately $3.4 million), the Company received 3,000,500 shares of YFE’s common stock, a 28.7% ownership in YFE. Following the initial equity investment in YFE, the Company participated in a mandatory tender offer for the remaining publicly traded shares held by YFE shareholders. Upon the expiration of the offer on February 14, 2022, the Company purchased an additional 2,637,717 shares of YFE at 2.00 EUROS per share or 5.3 million EUROS ($6.0 million USD) in the aggregate. On March 9, 2022, bonds held by YFE shareholders were converted into 2,573,800 shares of YFE common stock, 304,431 of which were purchased by the Company, at 2.00 EUROS per share or 0.6 million EUROS ($0.7 million USD). On April 5, 2022, the Company exercised its subscription rights to purchase an additional 914,284 shares of YFE’s common stock at 3.00 EUROS per share, or 2.7 million EUROS ($2.9 million USD), increasing the number of YFE’s outstanding shares to 6,857,132. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the Company did not take part in a round of financing raised by YFE which increased YFE's outstanding shares and therefore decreased the Company’s ownership in YFE from 48.0% to 44.8% as of December 31, 2022.
Liquidity
During the year ended December 31, 2022, the Company’s cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash decreased by $2.6 million. The decrease was primarily due to cash used in investment activities, inclusive of the Wow and Ameba acquisitions and the YFE investments, totaling $30.9 million, $23.7 million used in operational activities, 1.3 million of principal payments made on finance leases and $1.2 million distributed to SLU. Cash used was offset by $55.3 million of proceeds provided by the margin loan, production facilities and bank indebtedness, net of repayments.
As of December 31, 2022, the Company held available-for-sale marketable securities with a fair value of $83.7 million, a decrease of $28.8 million as compared to December 31, 2021. The decrease was primarily due to selling $14.1 million securities during the year, additional prepayment proceeds of $7.9 million on principals for certain mortgage-backed securities and an increase in unrealized loss of $5.4 million for the securities still held. The available-for-sale securities consist principally of corporate and government debt securities and are also available as a source of liquidity.
The Company borrowed an additional $68.8 million from its investment margin account during the year ended December 31, 2022 and repaid $15.7 million with cash received from sales and/or redemptions of its marketable securities. During the year ended December 31, 2022, the borrowed amounts were primarily used to finance the Company’s additional investments in YFE and the closing of the acquisitions of Ameba and Wow, with the remaining borrowing used for operational costs, in each case pledging certain of its marketable securities as collateral. The interest rate for these investment margin account borrowings fluctuates based on the Federal Funds Rate plus 0.65% with interest only payable monthly. The weighted average interest rate was 2.59% and 0.72% on an average margin loan balance of $48.2 million and $5.9 million during the years ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, respectively. The Company incurred interest expense on the loan of $1.3 million during the year ended December 31, 2022. The amount of interest incurred on the margin loan during the year ended December 31, 2021 was insignificant. The investment margin account borrowings do not mature but are payable on demand as the custodian can issue a margin call at any time, therefore the margin loan is
recorded as a current liability on the Company’s consolidated balance sheets. As of December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, the Company's margin loan balance was $60.8 million and $6.4 million, respectively.
Upon the acquisition of Wow, the Company assumed certain credit facilities (the “Facilities”). The Facilities are comprised of: (i) an $8.0 million CAD revolving demand facility, (ii) a $4.3 million CAD equipment lease line, (iii) a treasury risk management facility for foreign exchange forward contracts, (iv) interim financing facilities for specific production titles and (v) a $1.4 million CAD equipment lease facility, separate from the equipment lease line. Refer to Note 13 for additional details.
Historically, the Company has incurred net losses. For the years ended December 31, 2022, and December 31, 2021, the Company reported net losses of $45.6 million and $126.3 million, respectively. The Company reported net cash used in operating activities of $23.7 million and $23.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2022, and December 31, 2021, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, the Company had an accumulated deficit of $641.4 million and total stockholders’ equity of $112.9 million. As of December 31, 2022, the Company had current assets of $139.5 million, including cash and cash equivalents of $7.4 million and marketable securities of $83.7 million, and current liabilities of $110.9 million. The Company had working capital of $28.6 million as of December 31, 2022, compared to working capital of $115.1 million as of December 31, 2021.
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