Middle East Private Equity Funds And Angel Investors See Investment Opportunity In Media Finance

Jan. 11, 2008 - PRLog -- Noci Pictures Entertainment, A  Film Company headed by Yuri Rutman Is structuring an innovative film fund that has multiple exit strategies, SECTION 181 Federal Tax Benefits, and  Tradable Tax Credits

The Company’s concept compromises a business model that will seek to provide an efficient and profitable multi-exit strategies to investors; finance, co-finance and produce 6-12 Films whose story line will excite, scare, sadden,  thrill global movie goers;  and, have an operational and management model that will be void of excessive and unnecessary overhead that is commonplace in other Film Companies and film projects.

The concept stems from the Company founder’s realization of eight current marketplace trends and opportunities:

*Sergey Brin And Larry Page Of Google, Fred Smith, the CEO of Federal Express, Norman Waitt, the Co-Founder of Gateway Computers, Jeff Skoll Of Ebay, Todd Wagner and Marc Cuban (formerly of broadcast.com), Max Levchin and David Grodnick Of PAYPAL, Marc Turtletaub of The Money Store, Roger Marino Of EMC Corp, former Chicago bulls co-owner Jim Stern, Sidney Kimmel Of Jones Apparel Group, Minnesota Twins owner Bill Pohlad; Real Estate Developers Tom Rosenberg, Bob Yari; and, financiers Robert Sturm, Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim, Zeid Masri of SilverHaze Partners, Michael Singer, Mark Esses, David Larcher, Michael Goguen, Richard Landry, Michael Reilly, Rafael Fogel, and Philip Anschutz are just a handful of high net worth entrepreneurs who entered the motion picture finance and production business with successful results.

*There are various tradeable state, federal, and internationa tax credit incentives that would offer a premium based on an equity position. Assuming there is a 10 million dollar budget film, where 50% of it is in equity, and 50% is through international distribution guarantees prior to release. Now assume there is a 20-25% tax credit on the entire amount of $10 million dollars, which will immediately translate into $2-2.5 million tax credit to an investor.

*Numerous hedge funds such as Reed, Conner & Birdwell (DISNEY),  Legendary Fund (Warner Brothers), Melrose Fund (Paramount Pictures), Ingenious Media’s 700 Million dollar Float on London’s AIM, Benjamin Waisbren Investments, and a host of other funds and fund managers are entering the film finance arena.

*The explosion of international DVD, pay-per-view, home video, cable, megaplex theaters, the future of multi-lingual Internet video on demand downloads, and cross-market digital distribution including low-cost theatrical digital projection, the movie industry is accelerating at an unprecedented growth rate.

*The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, which amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, was signed into law . The Act creates three tax incentives expressly applicable to motion pictures, one of which – § 181 of the Internal Revenue Code – is especially significant to independent film producers and their passive investors on qualifying films with budgets under $20 million dollars.

*The filmed and other entertainment sectors are constantly outperforming and beating analyst expectations with regards to growth, and are the only industries resistant to untimely global events and adverse economic conditions.

*Movie Investor returns may be more favorable and more liquid than holding direct equity positions in most public entertainment and other public companies, real estate investments, and other alternative investments.

*There is a huge demand, audience, and growing distribution structure for specialty independent, ,crime,  horror, and other low budget films as exemplified by the success of  such films as “Brokeback Mountain”, “Sideways”, “Capote”, “Garden State”, “Napolean Dynamite”,  “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, “Memento”,  “Crash” ,  “Saw 1 &2”, Friday The 13th”, “Halloween”, “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “Hostel” and “WOLF CREEK”, which was made for $800,000, bought for nearly 4 million dollars prior to its release by Dimension, as well as “Hustle and Flow” which was made for $2 million dollars and bought for $16 million by Paramount Pictures.

*Apart from large blockbusters such as “King Kong”, “Harry Potter”, and other large scale studio films, the majority of studio-produced films have been under performing at the box office.  The films that have been successful for studios were all externally financed and or co-financed with studios, sold for 2-3 x their costs, and a majority of them retained foreign sales rights to maximize revenues.

The Company is reviewing private equity partners consisting of family offices, hedge funds, fund of funds, tax credit investors, and High Net Worth Investors ranging from those in the United States to as far as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, And Asia.

Website: www.noci.com