Investment In the Frame For Lenfilm

By Yevgenya Ivanova

Staff Writer

Published: November 18, 2005 (Issue # 1123)

Lenfilm, the legendary St. Petersburg-based studios, are in talks to attract an estimated $50 million worth of investment, the company said Wednesday.

Having changed its legal status earlier this year, the studios is set to sign an investment contract in September 2006. It said that production will remain its core business with ten films planned for the next five years.

“We are currently negotiating with companies who agreed to develop our film business specifically in St. Petersburg,” said Andrei Zertsalov, Lenfilm’s general director.

Russian law states that “a joint stock company made up of 100 percent state capital, is not legally allowed to sell its share to a principal investor without an open tender procedure,” Ilya Tamarkin, chief of joint stock companies department of OSV Consulting group said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Zertsalov said that the company sold its non-core assets in order to be able to finance the modernization of the studios’ facilities.

Meanwhile, an investment expert who asked not to be named said that Lenfilm’s goal may not be easily realized.

“For investors it’s more logical to invest in a certain film, where they can receive a share of distribution. To invest in a company when it’s unclear where and what they will produce is very difficult psychologically,” he said.