Funding phase for Stories of Faith project starts

Between 30 June and the end of 2006, the Irish production firm Stories of Faith Ltd. is going to collect 76 million Euro in private equity through a private placement to finance a media world project

Interview with CEO and producer Wolfram R. Bauer

Mr Bauer, what exactly is your private placement?
Stories of Faith Ltd. is a private limited company with several share classes, each carrying different chances and risks. There are Limited Partnerships associated, which potentially offer tax benefits to investors. The offer is addressed to private and institutional investors. Due to the high entry level, we are speaking to investors who know exactly what they are doing.

What are you associating with Stories of Faith?
The search for identity. During thousands of years of mankind, different patterns for social interaction were developed in different regions of the world. Such patterns describe group identities. Some call it philosophy, others religion. They are the base for a fair coexistence of peoples. Each human being is born into such an open identity and needs to come to terms with it throughout the course of their lives. This can be a difficult task in our globalized world.

Which target group are you addressing?
First of all we would like to reach young people. During adolescence they find out that there is no such thing as abstract norms, and that their parents and grand parents have made many mistakes. They are curious, and they are more open to unusual stories than older people are. Many of them are not in a position to travel around the world and only a few have the possibility to get in very close contact with other value systems. With Stories of Faith we would like to stimulate such curiosity, because all our protagonists will be naturalistic and likeable.
Our differentiated products will of course address all age groups. The discussion of topics around one’s own identity in a globalized world is ongoing.

Large-Format, known under the brand IMAX™ in Europe, is mainly successful in Northern America and Asia as documentary event entertainment. How does that go with Stories of Faith?
Those who are smiling about “tired-feet-movies“ for a fast food generation are not taking into account the enormous success of this special format. Yes, we are speaking about family entertainment, even in the few European large-format theatres.
Those films are commercially tremendously successful. This is the reason why the format was only developed technically, but not as much artistically during the last years. We would now like to develop another detail: the genre. “Tired feet” are not only interested in whales, lions, nature and animations, but also in stories. That is why we would like to use the spectacular images and sounds – with an international cast – and create a series of feature films for large-format. I could not image a better start than this with our brand Stories of Faith.

Which are the most important products within your multi-platform project?
We will start with a game that invites users of mobile phones and computers. This game will focus on identity-making. We would like to offer for everyone what only a few rich scholars used to be able to access. This start will define the brand Stories of Faith. Daily stimuli will invite users into a new communication network. Could there be anything better than people communicating?
Then we will of course have the classics: books for children, non-fiction books for young people and adults, later on the high gloss books for older people. TV documentaries and feature films as well as DVD editions - as individual films or as a series – will be added. The fascinating thing about this multi-platform project is that each product markets the other.

Who are you competing with in the market?
There is no competition yet, at least not for all products around this topic coming from one producer.

What is the difference between the Stories of Faith fund and other media funds?
Originally media funds were a German invention. Two German governments invited wealthy people to give their tax money away to Hollywood. Withing a few years, more then 12 billion Euro were thus transferred to the USA. The reason why revenues were so low was the clear mistake the initiators made: the funds invested their “Stupid German Money” as minority partners into individual productions, in which the fund managers had no say. Therefore revenues flew back to the US major distribution firms. It is interesting to note that two governments and all investors have tolerated such constructions for so long.

Stories of Faith is different. We have no blind pool, but an identifiable product, for which the production owns all world rights. The international distribution firms must coordinate their marketing, because the production pays half the distribution costs. In addition to that, we are working with Fintage House, the largest international independent escrow holder in the Netherlands, which has worked without scandals for many years.

The word “media fund“ is becoming a faux-pas word in Germany. Why is that so?
Because investors feel that they were not informed well enough and because questionable defeasance structures were used – giving benefits to everyone but the investors. Of course finance agents and banks are now worried that many more investors will ask themselves about the legality of such structures. In addition to that, the financial authorities need to fill their empty cash boxes and are now showing an example of the wrong construction with one manager (VIP Medienfonds) and his banking contacts.

Will your German investors be affected by any imminent changes in German tax law?
Of course not. While everyone in the classic German media funds business is now trying to realign business activities, our investors are subject to the stable Irish tax law and the relevant double taxation agreements. This is much more interesting than it sounds!

Why did you select Dublin as your main location for production?
Mainly for the above reasons. Ireland is an open democracy with a modern legal system, the lowest stable corporate taxes in Western Europe, and has signed double taxation agreements with more than 44 countries, which offer excellent opportunities for international investors. Such agreements can not be changed as fast as national tax laws.
Moreover, we are producing for the international market, mainly Northern America and Asia. Irish people are very open and tolerant and have given many impulses to the film industry during recent years.


Which experience do you personally have in this field?
A CEO needs basic industry experience, a talent for integration and assertiveness.
As a humanist, theologian and dissident I have been given all instruments for open and hard conflict during my times in former East Germany. After the wall came down, I have extended my media experiences in Munich. For the last ten years I have worked as a producer and director of international documentaries and in project development for the large-format genre. I think that I am well ahead of some of my fund colleagues with regard to my professional biography. I will of course use those experiences to the best of our investors.

Who are your financing partners?
Very wealthy private investors and profitable firms, who can afford to invest a lot of money in a very special project, because they are convinced of the commercial construction and they like the concern the project has.

You have introduced Stories of Faith at the Berlin Film Festival 2006 for the first time, and the experts have applauded. Why was that?
The times are over, when European films could be financed through national subsidies. Those who still believe in subsidies, produce with low budgets which usually do not create a successful product. This trend can even be seen at the large international film festivals.
Private Equity, however, has transformed its image in Europe from a crude bandit to the cash cow of wealthy investors. Self-confidently are we joining the “economic mainstream” (as Martin Halusa, Chief Executive of the British private equity provider Apax Partners, put it), because we know that our product is suited perfectly for such investments. We think that this became obvious to the experts at the Berlin Film Festival.

Thank you very much, Mr Bauer. (Berlin, 26 Juni 2006)

Stories of Faith Limited is a Dublin-based Irish media fund and film production company. Together with its associated Limited Partnerships it offers a private equity investment opportunity in an international film and media project to qualified private and institutional investors.

ww.stories-of-faith.com

Stories of Faith Ltd.
Company No. 401367
Dublin/Ireland

IRELAND
32 Park House, Palmerston Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6
fon +353 1 486 06 87
fax +353 1 633 58 81

This release was published on openPR.