Cin­e­maONE Group end­ed the 2025 fi­nan­cial year with high­er rev­enue and stronger un­der­ly­ing op­er­at­ing per­for­mance, even as ac­count­ing-dri­ven lease charges and fi­nanc­ing pres­sures pushed loss­es wider.

Chair­man Bri­an Jahra framed the re­sults against a glob­al cin­e­ma in­dus­try still ad­just­ing af­ter COVID-19 and Hol­ly­wood dis­rup­tions, with growth slow­ing and busi­ness mod­els un­der re­assess­ment.

For the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, ad­mis­sions and gross rev­enue across One Wood­brook Place in Port-of-Spain, Gulf City Mall in San Fer­nan­do, and Price Plaza in Ch­agua­nas in­creased by three per cent. Gross rev­enue rose to $20.5 mil­lion from $20.0 mil­lion, while gross prof­it im­proved to $12.7 mil­lion from $12.4 mil­lion.

Jahra re­port­ed that IFRS 16 lease de­pre­ci­a­tion rose by 27 per cent to $1.5 mil­lion, con­tribut­ing to a four per cent in­crease in over­all ex­pens­es and leav­ing the op­er­at­ing loss un­changed at $1.6 mil­lion. Fi­nance costs climbed 28 per cent to $6.7 mil­lion, large­ly re­flect­ing in­ter­est charges on new­ly leased prop­er­ties. When com­bined with a de­ferred tax loss ad­just­ment of TT$1.0 mil­lion, the group’s net loss widened to $9.2 mil­lion, com­pared with TT$7.4 mil­lion the year be­fore.

Jahra cau­tioned, how­ev­er, that rev­enue growth re­mained mod­est and was out­paced by struc­tur­al costs. Lease ex­pens­es, in par­tic­u­lar, con­tin­ued to pres­sure re­sults un­der IFRS 16 ac­count­ing rules.

IFRS 16 re­quires com­pa­nies to bring most leas­es on­to the bal­ance sheet, record­ing de­pre­ci­a­tion and in­ter­est ex­pens­es that are front-loaded in the ear­ly years of a lease, even though cash pay­ments do not in­crease.

Jahra re­port­ed that IFRS 16 lease de­pre­ci­a­tion rose by 27 per cent to $1.5 mil­lion, con­tribut­ing to a four per cent in­crease in over­all ex­pens­es and leav­ing the op­er­at­ing loss un­changed at $1.6 mil­lion.

Jahra ac­knowl­edged that liq­uid­i­ty re­mained a con­cern. The group end­ed the year with neg­a­tive work­ing cap­i­tal af­ter be­ing un­able to re­struc­ture its bor­row­ings with Guardian Group Trust by Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025. This trig­gered the re­clas­si­fi­ca­tion of all bor­row­ings as cur­rent li­a­bil­i­ties un­der ac­count­ing stan­dards.