While Helkon Media's turnover increased by 48% in the first nine months of its 2001/2002 financial year (August 1 2001 - 30 April 2002) from Euros 98m to Euros 145m, its earnings from usual business activities plummeted to Euros - 21.9m (2001: Euro 3.1m).

In a statement Helkon explained that its nine-month results had been influenced by two key factors.

Firstly, depreciations of Euros 10m had been made on the group's film library "due to the insecure forecasts for the German pay TV market and the price decay for pay TV rights resulting from this". Consequently, the pay TV rights had been depreciated to 5% compared to the previously set 15%-25% of the license value.

Another factor was the far below expected performance of the Rollerball sequel as well as the non-recurring expenses of Euros 2m incurred by Helkon's "rightsizing" measures instigated in autumn 2001 to streamline the group's internal organisation and a leaner M&A structure.