Palace Amusement has finally made its way back to the billion-dollar revenue mark!

Outside really a keep man. 

Palace Amusement, the island’s only cinema operator, not only managed to surpass a billion dollars in revenues for its full year which ended in June, but the company even topped its pre-COVID performance.

For reference, Palace makes money in three ways. Theatre operations, which is the actual movie ticket sales and food court is the main one.  Then there are the on-screen ads before and sometimes in the middle of the movie.  And thirdly, they also make money by renting films to other countries in the Caribbean.

Now according to the company’s full-year results, Palace made about $1.5 billion in sales. That’s almost $900 million more than it recorded in 2022.

But the real cause for excitement is the complete 180 in the company’s profits. Palace recorded $228 million in net profits for 2023 compared to a loss of $261 million in 2022. 

It’s important to keep in mind that Palace’s financial year ends in June. So if you’re wondering why they lost money in 2022, even though the restrictions were lifted and movies were playing, it’s because half of that performance would have been recorded in 2021.

This is great news for Palace. Remember they shut down completely during the pandemic, so no income at all. And even after things started reopening, it was just expense after expense.

They tried the drive-in movie theatre but that didn’t work. Marketing Manager, Melanie Graham told us on Taking Stock last year all the struggles they had with that, so they eventually had to shut it down. 

She also mentioned that the company took a big hit on its equipment because things were out of use for so long that when they turned them on again, stuff wasn’t working. So that was another expense.

So it was just hit after hit after hit for Palace.

But things are finally turning around. 

Carib 5 in Cross Roads contributed to the bulk of revenues, bringing in $567 million.  That was followed by Sunshine Palace in Portmore at $380 million.

As I mentioned before, those numbers are much better than before Covid. In 2019, the company made $1.1 billion in revenues and just $70 million in profits – compared to $1.5 billion in revenue and over $200 million in profit this year.

Palace said they’re on a roll and intend to keep it up. The company recently redesigned its website, and are planning to release a new mobile app soon.

As for the stock’s price, Palace did a 600:1 stock split earlier this year, which brought the price down to the $5 range. 

The stock closed trading at $1.42 on October 13, down 18% for the month.

Palace said they’re focusing on tech innovation to grow their presence, but they haven’t ruled out a new location as well. 

And that’s the bottom line.