EXCLUSIVE: The delivery of big-budget projects including The Power and Dan Levy movie Good Grief led Sister to double turnover in 2023 to $264M, although profit remained stubbornly in the red.
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Jane Featherstone and Liz Murdoch’s company put record revenue down to “the realization of pipeline projects and recovery from the delays to the production schedule of programmes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to the transatlantic outfit’s full-year company accounts, seen by Deadline.
In 2023, Sister launches included Prime Video’s long-gestating The Power adaptation, its first movie Good Grief and BBC thriller series Better. It also took stakes in Richard Bacon’s new outfit Yes Yes Media and Steph Curry’s Unanimous Media .
But while turnover shot up as expected, and is now more than $200M above where it was two years ago , Sister is still failing to turn a profit. It is getting closer, however, with a $9.5M adjusted EBITDA loss in 2022 becoming a $2M loss. Sister put the losses down to “investment in both development and creative and operational staff in its US operations alongside the buildout of the group infrastructure.” It upped staff levels from 69 to 100, according to the filing, with production employees more than doubling.
In 2023, the company built up its L.A. and New York offices with the high-profile hires of ex-Netflix execs Cindy Holland, Jane Wiseman and Efrain Miron, who took on the Global CEO , Head of U.S. Television and President of Strategy and Business Affairs roles respectively. Staffing increases may continue into 2024 but will be at a slower rate, we understand.
Sister stressed that the losses are in line with its “broader strategic plan.” The group maintains liquidity via long-term debt finance with net debt rising to $34.1M in 2023 and adjusted net debt balance to $80.5M.
Strike impact
With the impact of the U.S. strikes being realized, Sister anticipates a dip in turnover in 2024 but is hopeful that the “level of production activity in subsequent years” will “further increase”, with greater opportunities for diversified revenue “geographically and by genre.”
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Sister highlighted a number of short-term risks, including the “slowdown in commissioning,” and “changing nature of buyers with global reach who by nature of that reach seek to retain or negotiate distribution rights previously controlled by the producer,” while also flagging negative inflationary impacts.
There is also the Competition and Markets Authority investigation into Sister and a wealth of other British production companies over possible breaches of antitrust laws when engaging freelance crew members, which the Companies House filing said “is not currently possibly to reliably quantify” in terms of “liability that might result from the investigation.” Once concluded, the investigation could result in a fine of a maximum 10% of global turnover.
“Period of exciting changes”
Sister CFO Chris Fry told Deadline 2023 was “a period of exciting changes and growth for Sister.”
“We continued in our mission to empower visionary storytellers across all forms of media,” he added.
“We saw major milestones throughout the entire Sister group of best-in-class entertainment businesses – from hit feature films to award-winning documentaries, premium podcasts, and leading IP in publishing, graphic novels, and technology.”
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