JKN Global Group Public Company Limited (SET: JKN) has announced its 2023 consolidated financial statement through the Stock Exchange of Thailand as follows;
JKN had just recently published its 2023 earnings after requesting the Thai stock exchange for a postponement due to internal financial issues. The company reported a net loss of 2,128 million baht for the year, compared to a net profit of 608 million baht in 2022.
The overview on the entertainment and television business of the company in 2023, for the year ended 31 December 2023, the company earned a total revenue of THB 2,495.42 million, which decreased by THB 174.15 million or 6.52% from the previous year.
The company stated that since the traditional television media which are the main customers of the company had a continuous decline in income, resulting in companies which are upstream business being less affected by debt collection. Regarding overall analysis, advertising money has disappeared from the traditional media and moved to online media more and more. As a result, traditional media customers do not have purchasing power to acquire content to air in their channels. It also resulted in customers starting to have the liquidity issues which resulted in the overdue debt repayment to the company. Furthermore, changing the customer spending behavior to pay less attention to main media such as traditional television, driving dynamism innovations including arterial intelligence (AI) that is rapidly changing in creating content, these cause the company to monitor and focus on products for sale.
Still, the company had net loss of THB 2,157.48 million which decreased by THB 2,740.78 million or 469.87% from the previous year, resulted from the impairment of assets, the procedures that the company applied to ensure that the company’s assets are carried at no more than the recoverable amount. The impairment of the company’s assets was compared by considering the indications of each type of asset with the value from an external independent appraiser. The company recognized an Impairment loss of Intangible asset-program rights amount of THB 841.97 million, loss of trademarks and goodwill totaling amount of THB 271.52 million and other totaling assets amount of THB 31.48 million.
In total the impairment loss of 3 mentioned assets of the company being 1,144.97 million. The company also measured impairment of trade receivables, using the Expected Credit Losses (ECLs) resulted to recognize total ECL being THB 494.86 million. Furthermore, the company recognized an impairment loss for an investment amount of THB 619.45 million which was presented in the separate financial statements.
The company was unable to pay its own debt to debentureholders and is now seeking business rehabilitation.
On 5 March 5 2024 the Thai Bankruptcy Court has completely examined testimonies of the petitioner and the opposing party, and has scheduled the hearing date on April 23, 2024, while cancelling the appointments on March 6 and 7, 2024. Additionally, this does not impact the company’s business operations by any means.
JKN noted that submitting the rehabilitation petition will effectively solve the company’s liquidity problem under legal mechanisms and provide fair protection to all stakeholders. In addition, the company can continue its operation while being under the rehabilitation plan which is a sustainable solution to the problem and to create profits in the future.
In addition, JKN clarified that that the auditor does not express an opinion on the company’s financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023 was not due to the limited scope by the management but due to the uncertainty as at the date of the audit report, the management is considering the business plan as well as the negotiation with various groups of creditors. Therefore, the auditor was unable to audit by other means based on the events that cannot be concluded.
