Montreal: Cinar Films has filed a preliminary prospectus for a public share offering in the u.s., expected to raise approximately $15 million.

Cinar ceo Micheline Charest says once the prospectus is approved by the u.s. Security Exchange Commission, top management and sellers will begin ‘a road show’ in key u.s. cities.

In a related move, Cinar intends to open an office in Los Angeles by the end of April.

Filed Feb. 28, the preliminary prospectus calls for the sale of 2.5 million subordinate voting shares with one vote per share.

Charest says the u.s. share offering ‘will allow us to continue to grow, do more projects.’

She says the u.s. action had been planned for some time, ‘because we are part of the u.s. industryÉour accounting principles are based on u.s. standards, and we plan to take advantage of the fact we are a North American company.’

The offering’s underwriter is Furman Selz, New York.

A formal share price had not been set at press time, but Cinar stock is listed on the Nasdaq National Market, and has traded recently at the us$6 level.

At Cinar’s annual meeting in Montreal March 20, shareholders will be asked to approve a plan creating a new class of subordinate voting shares. Charest says the move is necessary if majority voting control is to remain with Cinar principals – Charest and president Ronald Weinberg – and in Quebec where the refundable production tax credit is vital to all Canadian production.

Traded on the Toronto and Montreal Stock Exchanges, Cinar shares were launched in mid-1993 at $5.50. The price rose sharply, 60%, and hit a high of $9 in the first year. The current trading level is in the $8 to $8.50 range.

Weinberg says 1995 production budgets will rise to $31.5 million, up almost $7 million over 1994. u.s. sources made up 42% of all production revenue in 1994. Total revenues were up 43% to $29.87 million for the 12-month period ending Nov. 30, 1994.

Weinberg says the company’s practice of producing exportable, quality, non-violent family entertainment is paying off and the strategy has been taken up by others.

He says the real challenge in the family market is producing shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which has successfully drawn both kids and adult viewers on ytv and Nickelodeon.

‘When you’re talking about entertaining kids and their parents with the same show, you’re talking about a challenge that can’t necessarily be met by someone who just wants to be in the kids’ business,’ says Weinberg.

He says the children’s broadcast and ancillary markets are no longer undervalued as in the past.

‘We’re seeing a lot more focus on kids,’ says Weinberg. ‘They’re being measured for the first time as part of a vital purchasing group.’

The New York Times recently reported spending by kids aged four to 12 in the u.s. stood at us$17 billion in 1994. Spending influenced by children in the same age group is pegged at us$155 billion annually.

The same article reported there are now four million births annually in the u.s. and 47.4 million children under the age of 13. This figure is projected to reach 50 million by the year 2000.

‘When businessmen see these kinds of figures, they say, there’s money there, let’s go and get it,’ says Weinberg. ‘Kids’ programming has gone from being absolutely worthless, a part-time job for program directors at tv stations, to entire networks being built around these kinds of shows, and it’s happening right around the world.’

Highlights in Cinar’s 1995 production slate include completion of the first six episodes of The Little Lulu Show, set for primetime broadcast on hbo and the CTV Television Network this fall and budgeted at $4.4 million; the production, in association with WGBH Educational Foundation of Boston, of 30 episodes of Arthur, budgeted at $13 million and Cinar’s first daily animation strip for pbs; and the company’s most ambitious project to date, Wimzie’s House (La Maison de Wimzie), considered the definitive replacement for the highly popular and long-running Quebec kiddies’ series Passe-Partout.

Forty out of a total order of 185 episodes of Wimzie, budgeted at $18.5 million, are set for delivery in 1995. Producer Patricia Lavoie says production starts March 27. Pilot phase directors are Helene Girard and Francois Jobin. Radio-Canada and Radio-Quebec will broadcast.

Also in production at Cinar this year are episodes 14-39 (out of a total of 52) of The Busy World of Richard Scarry, coproduced with France Animation and Beta Taurus in Germany in association with Paramount; the fifth season of Are You Afraid of the Dark?; and the final leg of the animated series Papa Beaver Stories, Night Hood (Arsene Lupien) and Babalous, the latter two majority produced by France Animation.

New projects in development include Space Cases, a youth inter-stellar sitcom set in a spaceship; Good Day Michelle, a $2 million mow sequel coproduced with Tucker Films in New Zealand; and five animation series with cumulative budgets of $23 million. Coproduction partners on the five new animation projects are Central Productions (u.k.), htv and King Rollo Films (u.k.), Editions Chouette (Quebec), htv and Eaglemoss (u.k.) and France Animation.