Warthog turnover climbs as studio growth continues apace

UK developer Warthog has announced its financial results for the year ended March 2003, showing a major climb in turnover and profits (pre exceptional costs) as the studio grows into one of Europe's largest.

The company has expanded substantially over the past year, with acquisitions in the UK (Zed Two), Sweden and the USA (Fever Pitch, now called Warthog Texas) bringing the total number of employees at the group to 263.

Turnover for the group was £11.4 million, a 29 per cent increase over the previous years figure of £8.9 million, while the company's EBITDA was up 54 per cent to £1.18 million, not counting exceptional costs.

However, those exceptional costs were significant, as a number of the studios publisher customers could not raise sufficient capital to fund projects, leaving two of Warthog's projects unfunded. The company is confident that it will find new publishing partners for these titles, but this has led it to report a pre-tax loss of £790,705 for the year.

Despite this hiccough, however, the picture presented in the report is generally a good one, with the company working on a variety of high-profile licenses including the Harry Potter franchise for EA and the Looney Tunes franchise (based on a forthcoming film) for Warner Brothers.

Reports have also circulated in the past couple of days that the company's Texas studio may be working on a PC RPG based on the Lord of the Rings franchise for Vivendi, which would be another major franchise coup for the group.

"The last year has been both exciting and frustrating for Warthog," commented CEO Ashley Hall. "The Group has made the vitally important transition to become a leading European developer and our reputation and standing in this global industry is amongst the very highest. We have won several particularly high-calibre contracts over the last year... These contracts, as well as other, as yet unannounced, contracts of a similar stature, reaffirm our long-term strategy of working closely with premium publishers on global brands."

"The precarious financial position of some of the smaller publishers with whom we entered into contractual relationships in previous years has meant we have had to shoulder the financial burden of these products to completion," he continued. "However, we are optimistic that we will be able to re-sell them to other publishers in due course."