THE value of the Media Development Fund dropped by more than £11 million in the time CinemaNX was in charge, it was revealed in Tynwald.
In a written reply to a question from Zac Hall (Onchan), Treasury Minister Eddie Teare MHK confirmed that the £50 million transferred to CinemaNX in August 2007 had dropped in value to £38,986,319 by the end of March this year.
Its value had risen to £56,887,525, by March 2009 but then had fallen away to £54,916,844 in 2010 and £43,563,963 in 2011.
Mr Teare said: ‘Over the period, the value of the Media Development Fund has diminshed and whilst recoupment has flowed from a number of successful developments, overall there has been no real positive rate of return on the initial investment.’
He said over the same period, the five year performance of the government’s reserve fund was 4 per cent.
Under a controversial proposal approved by Tynwald last month following a five-hour debate, Treasury is to buy a 19.99 per cent stake in Pinewood Shepperton from Peel Holdings at a cost of £24 million and appoint the studio to act as investment manager for the funds contained in the Media Development fund.
During that debate Mr Teare said a report by Oxford Economics into the finances of the Manx movie industry had put paid to the ‘perennial outcry that films lost money’, having concluded the industry had made a cash profit to Treasury of £290 million in the years from 1995 to 2006.
In Tynwald this month, Kate Beecroft (Lib Van, Douglas South) asked Mr Teare to published the draft version of the Oxford Economics report to show what corrections were made before the final report was published.
Mr Teare replied that he had no intention of publishing earlier versions of the report, insisting these were merely ‘works in progress’.