ZOO Digital

• 26/04/12

  Trading Update

• 20/04/12

  Blocklisting Interim Review

• 15/03/12

  Holding(s) in Company

• 12/01/12

  Holding(s) in Company

• 10/01/12

  Directors dealings & Holdings in Company

• 

  26/04/12

  ZOO Digital shares soar as it bounces back to profit in second half

  Media firm ZOO Digital’s (LON:ZOO) boss is upbeat about the company's prospects, notably its e-book business, after a bounce back into profit in the second half of the year.

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  06/12/11

  Zoo Digital's ongoing diversification will help offset the decline in DVD related business, says CEO

  Chief executive Dr Stuart Green believes that the firm's ongoing diversification plan will help it recover from a faster than expected decline in its DVD related home entertainment business.

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  13/07/11

  ZOO Digital spreads its wings beyond Hollywood

  Already established among Hollywood studios, ZOO Digital is targeting more sectors that it believes can make use of its media workflow technologies. Here, we take a look at the business.

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  14/09/10

  How ZOO Digital is Making its Hollywood Dream a Reality

  Boss Stuart Green walks us through a potentially transformational period in ZOO's development. We also get a hint of the potential of the company's tie-up with Multi Packaging Solutions

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  09/09/10

  ZOO Digital’s new iTunes toolset adopted by major Hollywood studio

  The new iTunes toolkit automates the production of menus and bonus features, allowing studios to produce enhanced download content at significantly lower costs. The toolkit is expected to open-up 'a large potential market' and add new revenue streams.

• 26/04/12

  ZOO Digital back in black as eBook and Blu-ray demand picks up

• 10/01/12

  ZOODigital Group: Investment group increases stake in firm

• 06/01/12

  Zoo Digital Group chairman and employee trust buy shares

• 06/12/11

  Zoo Digital hit by move away from DVDs

• 22/09/11

  Zoo Digital on track to meet market expectations

ZOO Digital Group provides software and related services that support the authoring, re-purposing and distribution of creative media. ZOO’s products form an integrated suite of web-based and desktop applications for audio/visual content and printed materials, adapting these media for different languages, formats and delivery mechanisms.

By centralising editorial and approval processes via secure web-based platforms, ZOO’s proprietary patented software helps customers to increase their speed of production, reduce costs and protect their brand integrity. ZOO’s services enable quicker and more cost effective processes across a wide range of applications and formats, including packaging, printed materials, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, video on demand, electronic sell-through, broadcast, music and electronic books.

The Group’s largest customers include major Hollywood studios, for which the production, marketing and distribution of titles in numerous formats across many geographies and languages has previously been a lengthy, costly and largely manual process. Increasingly the Group’s software is benefiting a variety of companies across sectors where the development of media products, printing, packaging and marketing involves complex processes in multiple countries and languages, particularly where brand integrity is of core importance.

Click here to view Zoo Digital's clients.

ZOO is a provider of software for managing collaborative workflows that involve regionalising and authoring creative content to companies across multiple sectors. We work with film studios, videogame companies, music publishers, toy companies and book publishers to simplify the production of their creative media. Our customers enjoy reduced time to market, higher quality and lower costs. We do this by designing innovative, patent-protected software and providing flexible solutions that combine licensing with value-added services to meet the diverse needs of customers of all sizes across multiple industries. Our software is used to create localised iTunes, DVD, Blu-ray, eBooks, product packaging and marketing campaigns for some of the best known brands in the world.

We offer comprehensive services for major content providers such as film studios, music producers, television networks, book and games publishers, and corporate clients who publish and market media for global distribution. 

Creating media for global distribution is a labor-intensive, time-consuming process for most companies. ZOO software enables businesses to create and deliver media to the global marketplace more rapidly and efficiently than ever before.

All ZOO tools bring customer value in their own right yet also work together to offer a smart end-to-end workflow for global media.

Interactive Content Editor

ZOO’s ICE solution (Interactive Content Editor) allows movie and music studios to cost-effectively produce value-added content for consumers interested in enhanced features and additional content with their digital media downloads. iTunes Extras and iTunes LPs deliver a richer product to film and music fans and quantifiable benefits to the producers.

Translation Management System

The TMS helps our clients manage global projects with complex media workflows and thousands of translations.

Templated Authoring System

For movie/tv content providers, TAS is the only professional DVD authoring solution that offers a flexible templated workflow. This de-skills the creation of a DVD title, so creating titles is quicker and cheaper. Because TAS is systematic about the way in which titles are prepared, it ensures all technical requirements are rigorously adhered to. This means titles are produced right-first-time, reducing the labor needed for QC.

Media Adaptation Tool

For anyone with an international market, MAT is the only automated tool which creates single and multi-lingual variants of printed and digital materials in multiple language and sizes. MATs flexible automation brings significant timesaving benefits, reduces the number of errors and encourages consistency in output designed for multiple territories.

MAT also links to other ZOO tools in the production workflow. This means that translations are requested, received and applied automatically (in conjunction with ZOO TMS. It also means all digital media menus (such as for DVD/Blu-ray/iTunes LPs) are already formatted for ZOO authoring systems (TAS/BDX/ICE).

ZOO eBook Builder

ZEB is an eBook editing tool which combines full support for fixed-layout epub files with the ability to quickly regionalise a title for many different territories. This means that graphically rich books can be easily converted into ebooks and made ready for multiple territories with reduced need for QC and without the need to manually create the epub files.

Blu-ray Authoring System

BDX is the only Blu-ray authoring system that combines flexible template-driven authoring with a visual menu editor. This means that BD discs can be made more quickly, with reduced need for QC, and without the need for programming skills. This can dramatically reduce costs.

Everyone in the home entertainment industry knows that Blu-ray production is complex, expensive to author and QC, and the work involved is error-prone, repetitive and requires highly skilled staff. It is also difficult to scale up when work increases.

Directors

Roger Jeynes – Chairman

Roger has over 20 years experience in the technology sector, encompassing senior sales, marketing and general management roles in the UK, Italy and the USA with IBM, Pyramid Technology Inc., and EMC Corporation. His most recent executive position was Chief Operating Officer at AIM-listed technology merchant bank Interregnum Plc through which he worked on the boards of more than a dozen technology companies.

He is a non-executive director of Downing Distribution VCT1 (DDV1.L), Keycom plc, mxData Limited and Charborough Capital Limited, and Professor of Management Practice at the Ashcroft International Business School of Anglia Ruskin University.

Roger chairs the Remuneration Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee.

Dr. Stuart Green – Chief Executive Officer

Stuart has led software companies since the early 1990s. He has founded and managed three software development houses. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Bristol, UK, he brings a technical edge to the leadership of ZOO Digital Group. In the early days of ZOO, Stuart initiated the research which led to a range of new methods to simplify the preparation of video products. He also invented a number of the core algorithms used by ZOO’s proprietary software — Stuart has more than 20 granted patents in the fields of image processing and media transformation. His knowledge of the technology and the industry has led ZOO’s development of innovative software as the enabler for its differentiated media transformation services. Stuart is also active in the search for new industry connections to propel sales and development.

Helen Gilder – Group Finance Director

Helen has been employed within the technical and services industry since 1993. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PKF in 1991 she moved into a more commercially focussed role. Her extensive managerial and transaction experience came through her role as Finance Director within a highly acquisitive listed IT company. She joined ZOO to assist with the initial float in 2000 as Group Financial Controller and has gathered an invaluable knowledge of the companies in the group. She became Group Finance Director in 2006. Helen is also Company Secretary.

Gordon Doran – Commercial Director

Gordon has held senior positions in sales and marketing roles for a variety of companies in the software industry since the early 1990s, both in the UK and US. Most recently he was Chief Operating Officer for Mediostream Inc. – a consumer DVD software developer – and joined ZOO in 2005 to establish a North American division. In addition to his role as Commercial Director Gordon is also President of ZOO’s US operation, responsible for all North America operations and has been pivotal in establishing relationships with a number of large US entertainment companies.

James Livingston – Non-Executive Director

James is a portfolio manager at Foresight Group, a leading UK investment manager. He works closely with the boards of a number of SME UK companies as non-executive director of two and board observer of a further six companies. He was a strategy Consultant at Deloitte where he advised businesses in the healthcare, public sector and technology sectors. He has a first class degree in Natural Sciences and Management from Cambridge University and holds the CIMA advanced Diploma in Management Accounting. James has represented Great Britain at the Rowing World Championships and rowed for Cambridge in the Boat race.

James chairs the Audit Committee and is a member of the Remuneration Committee.

Senior Management

Duncan Wain – Chief Operating Officer

Duncan joined ZOO following the acquisition of the assets of Scope Seven Inc. in August 2007. He co-founded Scope Seven in 1997 where he was responsible for operations and revenues from post-production, compression and authoring services provided to US entertainment companies. He is an accomplished executive in the Hollywood post production industry and through an affiliate relationship he established with GDMX, a division of Warner Bros., has worked with many studios including Warner Home Video., 20th Century Fox, HBO and the BBC. In his role as COO of ZOO Duncan is responsible for all production operations and for growing service revenues with studio clients. Duncan sits on the New Media Council of the Producers Guild of America, an industry group that serves to represent the interests of professionals responsible for the art, craft and science of production in the entertainment industry.

Phil Corio – Chief Technical Officer

Phil has worked in the pre-press industry since 1985, most recently with AGI Media Inc, Los Angeles where he was Production Director working on the creation of marketing materials and special packaging for the entertainment industry. Phil joined ZOO in 2006 and has been instrumental in establishing the company’s product and service offerings for the pre-media marketplace. In his role as Chief Technical Officer, Phil is responsible for providing direction for ZOO’s product development efforts to differentiate the company’s service offerings for the entertainment industry.

Major Shareholders

The Company’s issued share capital consists of 32,660,660 ordinary shares with a nominal value of 15 pence each (“Ordinary Shares”), each share having equal voting rights.

The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury and therefore the total number of Ordinary Shares with voting rights is 32,660,660.

As of 15 March 2012 the Company had been notified, in accordance with the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, of the following shareholdings amounting to 3% or more of the ordinary share capital of the Company:

In accordance with the AIM Rules (Rule 26), in so far as the Company is aware, the percentage of the Company’s issued share capital that is not in public hands is 57.47%.

*Total shareholding excludes shares held in the ZOO Digital Group Share Incentive Plan (SIP).

** For the purpose of the above table, the investment in the name of Foresight Group has been consolidated. The investment is held in the names of Foresight 2 VCT plc, Foresight 3 VCT plc, Foresight 4 VCT plc and Noble VCT plc all of which are managed by Foresight Group.

Updated from Zoo Digital website 09.05.2012

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