SNOWPIERCER Producer Rises 58% in Debut
Spackman Entertainment Group (SEG), the Korean film company behind hits such as
Snowpiercer,
Cold Eyes and
All About My Wife (2012), went public on the Singapore stock market on July 22nd. The company sold all of its 69.4 million shares ahead of its IPO. Starting with an initial offer price of SGD 0.26, the share price rose 58% to SGD 0.41 throughout the day.
The Seoul-based company raised approximately SGD 18 million (USD 14.5 million) from the IPO, funds it says it will use to expand through acquisitions and joint ventures, as well as set up new offices in Singapore and Los Angeles.
Partly owned by the Toronto-based Spackman Equities Group (SQG), SEG invests in Korean films through it subsidiaries Zip Cinema and Opus Pictures. Current titles from SEG include For the Emperor and Confession, as well as the upcoming E J-yong film My Brilliant Life starring SONG Hye-kyo and GANG Dong-won. Save for Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer, which was distributed by CJ Entertainment, recent SEG titles have been represented internationally by Korean sales company United Pictures. In addition to producing and distributing its own films, the firm also handles local distribution for select foreign titles.
SEG is the first Korean film outfit to secure a listing on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST). The company generated a USD 2.6 million net profit last year on USD 11.9 million of revenue. This was up from USD 4.4 million gross and USD 0.32 net loss the previous year.