Majesco posts $7.2 million loss

Cooking Mama publisher Majesco has reported fourth quarter and full year results for its fiscal 2009 period, which ended on October 31 last year.

The company disclosed a net loss of $7.2 million for the 12 months overall, compared to a profit in the previous year of $3.4 million - despite revenues rising significantly, by 47.8 per cent to $94.5 million.

The net loss per share stood at 24 cents, compared to an earnings per share figure in 2008 of 12 cents.

The company blamed several factors for the results and CEO Jesse Sutton stated that it would work harder to translate revenue into profit in 2010, having undergone a series of cost-cutting measures.

Poor sales of Our House: Party and a general under performance of new IP titles sat alongside a poor international performance and a higher percentage of lower margin sales, explained the financial statement.

"In 2009 we delivered a strong top line performance, exceeding our revenue guidance, despite a challenging economic environment and a difficult period for our industry overall," said Hutton. "Our top line was driven by the Cooking Mama franchise, Jillian Michaels' titles and strong distribution revenue. However, we were disappointed in our inability to translate this strong growth to the bottom line.

"While our top titles performed well, and we successfully maintained costs and reduced marketing expenditures, we had a soft retail performance from new IP titles in the fourth quarter. Based on our experience this holiday season, and our view of the video game retail environment, we carefully reviewed our 2010 title slate and either canceled or took impairment charges against a number of titles planned for release during 2010, primarily for Wii. This charge was approximately $3.2 million or $0.10 per share in the quarter."

"In 2010 we must translate our revenue into profitability and this is the key focus for our management team. We are taking a number of steps to better position the Company for 2010 and beyond. We are well capitalised and in that regard, in better financial position than we've been in recent years. We are looking to focus our resources on our best opportunities, publishing fewer, but stronger titles than we initially planned and driving additional efficiencies across our operations by reducing our cost structure."

Those cost structure reductions included lowering the headcount in the US and Europe by 17 per cent, while lower rent and other overheads have already contributed to a saving of $3 million.

The publisher's shares were up over 8 per cent yesterday to $1.19, but after hours trading suggests a slump of around 25% to 89 cents.