{"id":34,"date":"2021-07-19T14:53:46","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T12:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2021-07-22T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T13:41:02","slug":"ceo-comment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/who-we-are\/ceo-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"CEO Comment"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]\n

CEO Comment<\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text el_class=”intro-txt” css=”.vc_custom_1559812915806{margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”]\n

Dear Colleagues,<\/h2>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]To say that 2020 was a hard year would be understating the obvious challenges that we at Palma Pictures, and indeed the entire global production community, faced with the onslaught of Covid-19.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a strong start to the year, with advertising activity and two long form projects \u2018The Mallorca Files\u2019 and \u2018Operation Mincemeat\u2019 shooting across Q1, the pandemic loomed on our horizon.<\/p>\n

In March 2020, Spain declared a State of Alarm and subsequently shut her borders to international travel, thereby freezing our work flows and ability to generate revenues.<\/p>\n

Our first concern was of course, the safety of our team, and so we set about learning and putting into practice stringent Covid protocols for future studio and location shoots. Led by our indomitable Talent Director, Debbie Gill, we soon felt confident that we could once again operate safely and within the mandated guide-lines.<\/p>\n

With projects across our business lines of advertising, entertainment, film and television all seemingly arrested for the foreseeable future, we opted to utilize the Spanish government backed ERTE (furlough) scheme. Our team were incredibly supportive during these difficult discussions and their show of solidarity was a testament to the strong company culture we have strived to build over the past years.<\/p>\n

We also focused heavily on our \u2018Team First\u2019 approach, whereby we looked to position team members across incoming work flows. With certain roles this required retraining, but our team took to this with aplomb and enjoyed the process of learning new skills and rising to new challenges over the course of the year.
\nOur next challenge was to master the intricacies of \u2018remote shooting\u2019. With our producing clients for the most part, unable to travel to Spain, we needed to research and implement new software capabilities and processes which allowed us to capture content for our stakeholders that were collaborating with us from cities as far away as Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Our Technical Director, PJ Knox, stepped up to the plate and once again, in short order we had structured ourselves accordingly and were able to deliver this capability to our international client base.<\/p>\n

The impact of the pandemic on our financial performance was obvious with Billings falling to 13.7M\u20ac (63.3M\u20ac), revenues to 7.3M\u20ac (19.38M\u20ac) and EBITDA to (-) 484K\u20ac (1.83M\u20ac) for the Palma Pictures Media Production Group.<\/p>\n

However, thanks to our historically strong performance, cash reserves and strong banking relationships, we were able to navigate the year without endangering our cash-flows, or utilizing any of our available bank facilities.<\/p>\n

As the year progressed and we moved into Q3 \/ Q4 we welcomed back TVC & Print shoots from USA, UK and Spain. A test for our Covid protocols and remote shooting capability, but one which we rose to and with fantastic client feedback.<\/p>\n

We also hosted our usual summer shoot with ITV Germany\u2019s \u2018Love Island\u2019. A challenge considering the huge team of 350 people in attendance across the shooting period, but once again our robust and stringent approach to health & safety delivered a Covid free production and a delighted client.<\/p>\n

The national Spanish rebate for longform projects was significantly enhanced in May 2020 and now offers a 25% rebate up to the new cap of 10M\u20ac local spend (and with 30% for the first 1M\u20ac spend), driving a strong increase in film and television drama enquires and one which we look to capitalize on once the travel restrictions are lifted.<\/p>\n

Our dedicated talent agency, launched in Q1 2019, continued to gather momentum. It was a gap in our offering and now it is a strong competitive advantage. We are able to offer a full range of talent options at favorable rates for our clients and our options have been chosen in in most cases versus talent offered by global talent agents. Financially this business area remained profitable through a very challenging 2020.<\/p>\n

We continued to enhance our IT architecture, with particular note being a migration project of our visuals database to the innovative Reelscout platform, ensuring future efficiencies and tighter data management across our visuals delivery process.<\/p>\n

\u2018Palma Pictures Studios\u2019, our UK based production company, continued to build its inaugural development slate and we were pleased to secure further underlying intellectual properties over the course of the year, as well as building critical commissioner relationships.
\nSo, although we had a most challenging year, we head into 2021 in good spirits and with the firm believe that, as restrictions gradually lift and the global vaccine roll out gathers momentum, we will soon be returning to a buoyant marketplace and looking to take advantage of a rebounding advertising sector and the seemingly unsatiable demand for long form film and television content.<\/p>\n

I will look forward to sharing both our challenges and successes in the next edition of our Palma Pictures Annual Report.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mike Day<\/strong>
\nPalma Pictures CEO[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text el_class=”destacado”]We welcomed production teams from 9 territories to shoot their projects throughout Spain.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Our staff and freelance crews worked tirelessly over the course of the year to deliver \u2018Picture Perfect Service<\/em>\u2019 to our varied clients. We were delighted to bolster our talent base and made a spate of new hires including; Cat Isaakson (Head of Production<\/em>), Peter Steinzeig (Executive Producer \u2013 USA<\/em>), Soeren Schmidt (Executive Producer \u2013 Germany & Head of Barcelona Office), <\/em>Kristyna Podolska (International Producer \u2013 Eastern Europe & UK Market<\/em>) and the Goya winning Yousaf Bokhari (Head of Production Film and Television<\/em>) all having joined our team.<\/p>\n

We also welcomed some fabulous new chefs to our studio restaurant, in the form of Yann and David, to keep both our team and clients happy and well fed.<\/p>\n

We continued ‘busting silos’, with our production, locations and photo teams all working hand in hand within our production pool. Better communication, tighter collaboration and a wealth of shared experience also helped drive our internal team satisfaction poll to its highest level since we launched it some years ago.<\/p>\n

Film & TV workflows were our strongest to date with projects including Leftbank \/ Netflix \u2018The Crown – Season 3\u2019<\/em>, NBC Universal \/ Amazon \u2018Hanna<\/em>\u2019, BigTalk \/ SkyOne \u2018Living the Dream\u2019<\/em>, Clerkenwell Films \/ BBC \u2018The Mallorca Files<\/em>\u2019 and BBC Studios \u2018MotherFatherSon<\/em>\u2019, as well as a host of others choosing to shoot against the diverse backdrop of our Spanish locations. We also continued to take advantage of the 20% national tax rebate for long form projects helping to make Spain an even more competitive shooting destination.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text el_class=”destacado”]Film & TV workflows were our strongest to date with projects for Netflix, Amazon, SkyOne and BBC.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]We hosted three \u2018Love Island<\/em>\u2019 shows for ITV Studios with versions for the UK, Germany and even Australia.<\/p>\n

CSR activities continued apace and we passed our environmental audit for the ninth year running, retaining both our ISO 14001 and EMAS certifications. Other activities included our ongoing support for local charities, with forty of our team once again spending the day planting trees at the beautiful bird sanctuary of s’Albufera.<\/p>\n

We maintained our annual investment program to keep our studio complex and equipment inventory abreast of ongoing technical innovations in content capture with 500K\u20ac allocated over 2018 \/ 2019.<\/p>\n

We overhauled our IT architecture with new human resources and customer relationship management software.<\/p>\n

We opened an office in the capital of Madrid that, alongside our existing office in Barcelona, strengthened our mainland offering and serviced some great work for brands such as \u2018Audi<\/em>\u2019, \u2018Head & Shoulders<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018Hotels.com<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n

So, all in all, an exciting and action packed twelve months with great teamwork delivering a great result. We\u2019ll look forward to sharing our latest news with you in the next edition of our Palma Pictures Annual Report.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]\n

Mike Day<\/h4>\n

Palma Pictures CEO[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text] CEO Comment [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text el_class=”intro-txt” css=”.vc_custom_1559812915806{margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”] Dear Colleagues, [\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]To say that 2020 was a hard year would be understating the obvious challenges that we at Palma Pictures, and indeed the entire global production community, faced with the onslaught of Covid-19. After a strong start to the year, with advertising…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":32,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/206"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annualreport.palmapictures.es\/annualreport2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}