HISSTANK Coverage Of Hasbro 2023 Q2 Earnings Conference Call

Another day, another dollar… Actually, 500 million dollars!

Announcing their sale of eOne to Lionsgate, toy giant Hasbro kickstarted this quarter’s earnings call. However, they did not forget to comment on the future of the Transformers franchise as well as the future of other entertainment franchises. Hasbro will keep the entertainment development aspect of its own brands under a new banner titled Hasbro Entertainment. But, they will look towards partners (ex: Paramount Pictures) to carry out the executions.

“Hasbro Entertainment will be the new marquis for our ongoing entertainment efforts after the sale closes, under the leadership of Olivier Dumont, the current head of eOne Family Brands. Hasbro Entertainment’s mission is to develop, finance, and produce entertainment based on the rich vault of Hasbro-owned brands. We will bring to life new original ideas designed to fuel all areas of Hasbro’s blueprint including toys, publishing, gaming, licensed consumer products, and location-based entertainment.

We will retain a focused team of creative development and business affairs experts to shepherd the 30+ Hasbro-based projects in development working with the best studios and distribution platforms in Hollywood including ongoing development of the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises, Play-Doh, D&D, Magic: The Gathering and our board game portfolio.

As part of the sale, we expect to move to an asset-lite model for future live-action entertainment, relying on licensing and partnerships with select co-productions like our previously announced Transformers One animated film and the D&D live-action television series, both with our partners at Paramount.“

Regarding the quarter, Hasbro had this to say:

“Within Franchise Brands we delivered significant Q2 revenue growth in Transformers and Dungeons & Dragons driven by the uplift from the movie releases. Additionally, Peppa Pig grew as a result of growth in entertainment and digital gaming.”

Hasbro also made a good comment in connection to the financial performance of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts:

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is one of the top box office performers of the year and has driven an 83% improvement in Transformers’ point of sales since its release.”

During the Q&A Session, CEO Chris Cocks stated that Baldur’s Gate 3 video game is likely to financially outperform all of Hasbro’s entertainment efforts throughout the past 5 years.