Animator Gets the Italian Financial Market Animated.

Mondo TV the Rome-based animation company (www.mondotv.it), is on top of the world since it went public this summer on Italy's New Stock Exchange (Nuovo Mercato). "Boom of Bidders for Mondo TV IPO" was the headline in II Sole 24 Ore the day after its market debut.

Sponsored by the IMI Bank, shares of Mondo TV opened at 64 Euro, providing a market capitalization equivalent to $240 million. Bidders requested a total of 13 million shares against an offering of 800,000. According to official reports, Mondo TV posted profits of $650,000 during the first quarter of this year.

The Mondo TV Group, which includes Doro TV Merchandising, is Europe's fifth-largest producer of children's animation and is the fifth European animation company to be listed on a European stock exchange (and the second media company to be listed in Italy, the other being Mediaset).

The Group's program library valued at $143.6 million, comprises 660 episodes of animated TV series (18 titles with worldwide rights); 100 motion pictures, including Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema and various Akira Kurosawa movies; and 500 episodes of assorted non-animated television series. Through Doro TV, Mondo controls the distribution rights to some 5,000 Japanese cartoons. This library has been valued at $29.2 million.

Mondo TV's beginnings date back to 1964 when 24-year-old Orlando Corradi and his Japanese partner Kenichi Tominaga founded DEA s.n.c., a Japanese animation distribution company. In 1979, the two started Doro TV, which produced its first two cartoon series in 1990: The Jungle Book and Christopher Columbus, followed by three more series. Tominaga exited the partnership in 1999. Last year, Mondo TV produced its first animated theatrical feature, The Legend of the Titanic, and this fall will release its second feature The Prince of Dinosaurs.

Half of Mondo TV's revenues are generated in Italy while 33 percent of its monies come from neighboring European territories, 9 percent from Asia and 5 percent from the Americas.

While 80 percent of Mondo's business involves dealing in TV rights and 13.4 percent in home video, Mondo TV's ancillary businesses are publishing (3.6 percent), merchandising (1.8 percent) and music (1.2 percent). The company plans a foray into multimedia production in the near future.

Last spring, Mondo TV signed a co-production agreement with Korean animator Hahn Shin Corp. in a deal valued at $40 million. The transaction included five animated series (200 half-hours) for the Italian market.