CSB has been working for months on an exciting project with film journalist Andrew Urban of Urbancinefile. We’re interviewing film and television practitioners about their business experiences.
Our aim is to develop a deeper understanding about the history of business decision-making in film and television and to share with our audience the wisdom from the accumulated mistakes, experiments and achievements of the contributors.
Peter Ivany - biography
As Chief Executive of Hoyts Cinemas (1988 – 1999), Peter Ivany grew the company from a small cinema chain with 40 theatres in Australia to a global business with over 2,000 theatres operating in 12 countries. The value of the company increased from $40m in 1982 to $1.3 billion in 1999, when it was sold to Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press group (CPH).
Peter has expertise across many businesses, particularly consumer marketing, leisure, entertainment, retail, media, communication and property. He has taken three companies to IPO, raising in excess of $500m. As well as Hoyts, these have included television broadcasting and media outsourcing services and an entertainment and advertising business. Peter now manages his own diversified investment company, Ivany Investment Group (IIG). He is also an active member of the wider community, and is directly involved in a number of arts, educational, sporting and charity organizations.
To watch interview click here for a summary of what was covered in the interview, see below.
Chapter 1 - The expansion of Hoyts - 16 minutes
•Hoyts’s massive cinema expansion (1988-99) - from 40 screens to 2,000 across 12 countries
•A unique set of business circumstances
•Capital available in public and private markets, debt and equity mix
•Sold company in 1999 for $1.2 billion; roughly $600 million equity, $600 million debt (probably really worth about $900 million)
•Managing the growth and the impact of new venues on existing business
•Expansion driven by need to grow
•Managing physical expansion and maintaining operations
•Improving candy bar revenue, from $1 per ticket to $3 and up
•Measuring cost; counting candy bar as profit
•Combined distribution and exhibition business model
Chapter 2 - DVD, digital distribution and film financing - 13 minutes
•The Internet will impact on distribution policies
•DVD delivers about half the total income from films
•Piracy issues to overcome
•If you don’t protect your copyright you devalue your IP product
•Investing in VideoEzy – attracted by the membership base
•A good franchise model
•Learnt some lessons from the cinema business
•Ivany investments in IMAX, backpacker accommodation, retail and others
•Movie and media industries not a good investment – but people do it for love
•Investments in movies more a donation
•Film production needs subsidy
•Producer Offset will encourage production
•Investors need to limit risk to 30% of their investment
•Exhibition is perhaps the best business in this sector
•Digital cinema: the beneficiaries are the distributors – they should bear the cost
Chapter 3 - Training and the screen industry- 8 minutes
•Biggest training challenge (not counting great story ideas) is to learn digital
•AFTRS needs to work with the industry
•Competition for screen students
•AFTRS relocation to Fox Studios will promote creative networking
•Australia is the biggest screen industry nursery in the world
•Screen industry needs more Government support