Genius Brands International, Inc. (NASDAQ: GNUS) Issues Shareholder Letter
BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/26/17 -- Genius Brands (NASDAQ: GNUS) recently released a letter to shareholders from Chairman & CEO Andy Heyward. The complete letter follows:
Dear Friends and Shareholders,
While Genius Brands' stock has bounced around recently, the company finds itself in an extraordinary position of value creation.
We believe this will be reflected in our 4th quarter numbers, as programs are delivered for broadcast and several million dollars of revenues should be recognized. Further to the above, I thought it would be useful to provide some specific data points for our shareholders about our company today.
The core of Genius Brands is in two buckets:
CATALOGUE OF KID'S CONTENT
KID'S CHANNEL
These are two highly coveted assets which historically have proven over and over and over again to be of enormous value. Comparable assets recently traded for hundreds of millions of dollars, and even more. (e.g.Classic Media, Dreamworks Animation, the Hub, DHX, etc.)
The Genius Brands catalogue of content continues to grow, with 414 distinct program episodes currently and another 104 episodes projected to be delivered by fall 2018.
The Genius Brands channel, KID GENIUS CARTOON CHANNEL, is today in over 50 million US TV Households, which enables us to reach half of all TVs in America. We expect to be in over 80 million US TV households within the next 60 days via a combination of cable, broadcast, and OTT distribution, thus reaching ¾ of all kids in America.
We have said that it takes 3 - 4 years to build a kid's entertainment brand. Since we began building our catalogue of kid's content, in November 2013, Genius Brands now has six key properties that have all just entered or are entering into the marketplace.
LLAMA LLAMA
SPACE POP
WARREN BUFFETT'S SECRET MILLIONAIRES CLUB
THOMAS EDISON'S SECRET LAB
BABY GENIUS
RAINBOW RANGERS
What is phenomenal is that EACH OF THESE PROPERTIES HAS MEDIA EXPOSURE AND RETAIL CONSUMER PRODUCTS LICENSEES. I'm not aware of a company or studio anywhere which has six active brands with both media and consumer products. Put another way, Genius Brands has six active irons in the fire from which to grow hits. This is in addition to the Kid Genius Cartoon Channel.
Our business partners to affect this success, reads like a "who's who" of the kid's entertainment food chain, including among them.
Mattel Toys
Nickelodeon
Netflix Kids
Comcast
Target
You Tube Kids
Penguin Publishing
BMG
Sony Music
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Toys"R"Us
Our recently announced Rainbow Rangers, has had the strongest reception of any property I can remember. The series has been picked up by Nickelodeon the #1 rated kids broadcaster, as well as Mattel Toys, the world's largest toy company. Further to the recent licensing show in Las Vegas, we have signed numerous licensees in the various major categories of kid's products.
Indeed, the Rainbow Rangers series has been the "buzz of the industry" with stories picked up and appearing this month in all the kid's entertainment trade magazines, including Kidscreen, Animation Magazine, TV Kids, Licensing Book, License Global, Licensing Letter, Licensing Source and ANB Media, as well business media including Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance (link below).
Without question, this is the most exciting time in the history of Genius Brands. Having created and/or produced over 5,000 half hour episodes of children's content, including numerous billion dollar brands such as Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Super Mario Brothers, Hello Kitty, and Alvin and the Chipmunks, I have never been more enthusiastic about value being created on behalf of our shareholders.
Sincerely,
Andy Heyward
Chairman & CEO
Genius Brands International, Inc.
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Source: Genius Brands International, Inc.
Released June 26, 2017