Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, IDW | Tagged: Davidi Jonas, yacht

IDW- "If Things Had Panned Out, Everybody Would Be On A Yacht"

Current CEO and new Publisher of IDW, Davidi Jonas of the Jonas family took an investment call while in the car about the comics publisher.

Current CEO and new Publisher of IDW, Davidi Jonas of the Jonas family took an investment call while in the car as as part of his duties of being a publically traded independent comic book publisher. As he pointed out, the only such comic book publishers of a comparable size, Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Boom, Dynamite, etc, that you can directly buy shares in. As well as talking about the history and the current status of the publisher and what they put out, he included a few notable newsworthy items that Bleeding Cool was keen to scoop up. We have been reporting on the turbulent employment conditions, including a new EIC that they still haven't announced, even though their competitors have. And there has been plenty of gossip to fill in the gaps. Might Jonas put some flesh on those bones?

We previously covered his mention of a new George Takei book, a pivot to horror, and IDW's own superhero, Bible, crime, mafia and serial killer comics. But what of the company as a whole? As this is an investment call, he had to be pretty blunt.

Davidi Jonas began by stating that " IDW had a pretty rocky last five to seven years. The company went public in around 2009 and it was just a publishing company that really didn't do entertainment or entertainment exploitation. And as a publishing company the business was quite profitable. It was a small company, entrepreneurial; every dollar that was made went back into reinvesting into the business, but there were real cash reserves for the company."

"If Things Had Panned Out, Everybody Would Be On A Yacht"

So what changed, Davidi? "Around 2013, the company made the decision to make a foray into entertainment and decided to become something of a studio and a producer. While we now are reaping some of the benefits with Wynonna Earp as an example, those were costly investments and frankly did not pay off. It ended up causing IDW significant financial stress towards the end of 2019 and 2020. The company just had to pay off loans for the productions as well as investments into entertainment as an asset class doing scripts and development and building a studio. If those things had panned out, I think everybody would be on a yacht clinking glasses and saying how brilliant that idea was. In retrospect, it didn't work out and those investments didn't pay off."

No yacht for Davidi. Could this be the new "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride"? So what happened with IDW more recently? "When I came into IDW about 16 months ago, the company was in a pretty precarious spot. They had gotten back down to a place where they were pretty low on cash. By the time we were able to staunch the bleeding, the company had gone from the start of the year at about ten and a half million in cash to about three and a half million."

"We've confidently turned things around and feel that we're on a path of profitability, we are already profitable and believe we will be sustainably profitable. As well as the engine for future growth that required a lot of hard decisions and reduction in force and other cuts to the company's budget."

Otherwise known as firing 40% of your staff of course, with all the fallout then and more recent departures with all the gossip one might expect. So what is next? "We're doing more with less and feel that we're in the strongest position to be able to execute on our long-term goals. At this point, the company did a round of financing or fundraising where we did a rights offering to the shareholders of IDW. There was pretty anaemic participation from the shareholder base. I think, over time, the IDW shareholder base has gotten less invested in the company and the story, which is understandable. And so by the time we did the rights offering, most of the participation came from a core group of of investors who believe in the future of the company, namely that's me and my family, and a few other small shareholders. The company is a controlled company, and I'm the controlling shareholder of the company. The Jonas family collectively owns and controls about two-thirds of the outstanding equity in IDW, and the rest is held by independent investors."

Well, looks like IDW really is a family business now. He continued, "That round of financing wasn't to pay off debt or anything like that. It was meant for strategic purposes for investing in the future of the company and having additional cash reserves. When we got to the bottom, we were at about three and a half million, we expect that we'll end the year over seven million in cash with the three million that we raised. We're on a path of profitability, and we're expecting 2025 –  when our fiscal year starts, November 1st of 2024 that starts our fiscal 25  – we expect it to be an even better year than the turnaround, We're going to be profitable this year is our expectation but when you consider the swing from losing about $7 million to where we are now, it's not just the profitability, it was the ability to to make that swing in such a short period of time. We've retained top talent, and we are investing in our talent, we believe that the future of our company is the people and their ability to deliver, to create, and to collaborate, and that's where we're investing our resources."

The Stock Exchange

The ones that are left, of course. IDW also de-listed themselves from the New York Stock Exchange and Davidi was asked if he would consider relisting the company. "We did delist from the New York Stock Exchange when I came on as a cost-cutting measure, so we've saved a lot on public company fees, which probably contributes to some of the lack of liquidity and trading in the company, and lack of interest. It's something that we're discussing if the benefit would outweigh the cost. Whatever cost we saved by going off of the New York Stock Exchange, we'd have to take back on if we relist, so we're sort of enjoying not having the burden of those costs. It's just a question of whether that trade-off makes sense but it is something that we're we're considering."

Look for a rebranding and relaunch of IDW at New York Comic Con for their 26th year.

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