Revenues treble at entertainment group
Virtual reality entertainment specialists, Immotion Group has reported record revenues as the chief executive says that one strand of its business had not just recovered but “was flourishing”
The Salford-based company say revenues rise 230% to £9.4m ahead of its previous record revenues in 2019 of £3.6m. The strong performance was attributed both to an increase in the group’s location based entertainment (LBE) business which had been heavily impacted by lockdowns.
As a result of the strong performance of this division the Sir Robin Miller, chairman of Immotion said the business “intends to spin out” its home based entertainment and Uvisan divisions in order to focus all of its resources on LBE.
He added that the board were confident that Immotion had a compelling business model which is “highly scalable and can drive superior shareholder returns”.
Martin Higginson, chief executive at Immotion explained the decision further: “Whilst we rightly took the decision in the middle of the Covid pandemic to launch two new businesses, HBE and Uvisan, as a way of hedging our position, we have decided it is in the best interest of our shareholders that we allocate all our resources to the LBE business. We believe this will maximise returns, and therefore we will be looking to spin out HBE and Uvisan, seeking external investment for both.”
The split for revenue for the year saw LBE deliver £6.3m, HBE £2/5m and Uvisan £0.5m.
Looking ahead Higginson said the the company has already expanding capacity at sites in both the USA and UK and has a strong pipeline of new sites.
He noted that 2022 has begun “in a very promising fashion” with Q1 group revenues of £2.1m (2020: £0.8m) and that growth in LBE revenues has continued.
“We are at a very advanced stage for the signing of our first major zoo installation which we expect to be this week, with an agreement for another large zoo installation in the USA also imminent.”
He concluded “Naturally, uncertainties remain, not least the appalling situation in Ukraine, but it now feels like a wholly different trading picture compared to the same period last year.”
