CEO Comment

2024 was another challenging year with the global advertising market remaining soft and the ripple effects from the US Actors and Writers’ strikes continuing well into the year.

However, our team continued to deliver across an exciting range of visual storytelling, with feature films, drama series, entertainment formats, TVCs and print campaigns visiting our Spanish and Portuguese shores over the course of the year.

These headwinds impacted our financial performance, albeit with an improvement on most 2023 metrics, with billings at 53.9M€ (64.63M€), revenues at 25.13M€ (20.59M€) and EBITDA at 583K€ (315K€) for the Palma Pictures Media Production Group.

We shot projects throughout Spain and Portugal, with units enjoying the varied backdrops of locations in areas such as; Mallorca, Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Ronda, La Palma, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lisbon.

Our Portuguese office, led by Vita Lains, also continued to build momentum with advertising work for the likes of; Maui Jim and Air Canada shooting with us.

Our staff and freelance crews worked tirelessly to deliver ‘Picture Perfect Service’ to our varied clients and we were happy to enhance our talent base by welcoming Jose Maria Delgado (CFO), Belen Garau (Head of Production – Advertising), Steve Evans (Executive Producer – Photo & Motion) and Pilar Amer Fuster (Deputy Head of Production – Scripted). Miquel Ferrer was also promoted to Technical Director.

Despite the slow-down of US work flows due to the strike action, we still hosted a sizeable slate of Scripted projects including; Eleventh Hour / Amazon MGM / BBC ‘Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue’, Sister Pictures / ITV ‘The Split Special’, Orchid Pictures / Netflix ‘Seven Dials’, Left Bank Pictures / BBC ‘This City is Ours’, Bad Wolf / Disney+ ‘The War Between’ and Alcon Entertainment / Amazon Studios ‘Bladerunner 2099’.

The Spanish government continued to show strong support for the audiovisual sector by increasing the Tax Rebate for Scripted Television productions to an episodic basis, making it ever more competitive.

We also finished the year with several confirmed projects for early ’25 and with a significant pipeline of work going forwards over the course of the year.

Our entertainment formats had a strong year, with both ITV UK and ITV Australia’s ‘Love Island’ shooting with us again in Mallorca during the summer. We also played host to Disney+ ‘Limitless’ with Chris Hemsworth, Netflix’s ‘Cheaters’ and Studio Lambert’s ‘Gossip Games’.

Our advertising teams worked on projects for brands such as; Facebook, Disney, Macys and Orangina whilst with photo we captured eye-catching campaigns for brands such as; Rolls Royce, Goldman Sachs and Uniqlo.

Our dedicated talent agency, continued to gather momentum and delivered another strong year for billings.

CSR activities continued apace and we passed our environmental audit for the thirteenth year running, retaining both our ISO 14001 and EMAS certifications. Other activities included our ongoing support for local charities.

Our annual investment program remained solid with CAPEX of 350K€ in 2024, as we looked to position our broad inventory for increasing demand.

Our mainland offices in Barcelona and Madrid serviced some great TVC work for brands such as ‘Rexona’, ‘Cerutti’ and ‘Breitling’.

Overall and despite the general uncertainty in the marketplace, an action-packed year and one which paved the way for the year ahead.

I will look forward to sharing both our challenges and successes in the next edition of our Palma Pictures Annual Report.

Mike Day, CEO