Senator Entertainment chief executive Hanno Huth defended his company's sale of film rights to two unnamed intermediary rights dealers rather than directly to TV stations at this week's annual shareholders meeting in Berlin.

Responding to queries from shareholders about reports in German weekly magazine Der Spiegel and daily national newspaper Die Welt, Huth declared that Senator "has not concealed anything". He added that it had been agreed to keep the names of the two intermediary rights traders confidential during the ongoing negotiations.

The report in Die Welt on the day of the AGM noted that several media analysts found it "mysterious" that Huth was planning to wait three or four months before naming the partners. Moreover, it suggested that the analysts were concerned that the $66m (DM150m) in trade receivables might be "phantom bookings" in the Senator balance sheet.

Pascal Spano of the Deutsche Bank issued a sell recommendation on Senator stock. "I would not like to own the stock of a company which only pretends to earn money, but doesn't actually do it," he told reporters.

There was concern that Senator's ambitious sales and profit forecasts for 2001 could be hard to reach now that the distribution arm is planning only to double the number of the films released this year to between 20-30. Originally, the company planned for 35-40 releases.

But Huth indicated at the AGM that he didn't anticipate any fall in sales. He maintained that he smaller number of releases would be compensated for by the international sales of films produced or financed by Senator.

Announcing the first quarter figures, Huth noted that sales had increased by 70% to $20.3m (Euros23.5m). Theatrical distribution accounted for $8.7m (Euros10.1m), while $10.3m (Euros12m) came from license trading. Thanks to the success of such releases as Chocolat and Das Experiment, Senator's market share climbed from 3.3% at the end of 2000, to 6.8% in the first three months of this year.