This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on September 19, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: MNC Wireless Bhd, which saw tycoon T Ananda Krishnan’s nephew Robbie Hari Krishnan Tatparanandam coming in as a director last week, has teamed up with New Zealand-based production house Monfils Pictures Ltd to diversify its digital technology and mobile solutions businesses to include producing films.

Its maiden project involves the production of a movie based on the biography of Tim Page — an English war photojournalist who inspired Dennis Hopper’s character in renowned director Francis Ford Coppola’s movie entitled Apocalypse Now.

MNC Wireless executive director and chief executive officer Christopher Tan Chor How said the company and Monfils have agreed to form a joint-venture (JV) company, in which MNC Wireless holds a 51% stake while Monfils Pictures holds 49%.

“If you noticed that in the last couple of years, the movie scene in Asia has picked up a lot. Many movies have been doing very well in this part of the world,” he told a press conference after signing the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two companies yesterday.

“We see this as an opportunity to ride along with the right partners at this juncture and not to come in later only when it is at the tail end,” he said.

Tan added that MNC Wireless and Monfils have commenced discussions and negotiations on the details of the JV and terms of collaboration, which involves capital investment and intellectual property rights.

While the MoU is expected to take up to six months to finalise, Tan said he is optimistic about completing the deal by the end of this year. “I would say it is now about 75% done,” he added.

Harold Monfils, founder, director and producer of Monfils, said the partnership has been “verbally agreed and just has put it on paper now”.

Robbie Krishnan, who is Astro Measat Broadcast Network System Sdn Bhd’s executive producer and focused on content and brand development, is credited for introducing and bringing the partnership together.

“He is in the film industry. So naturally we want to ride on the strength of his background. We brought him on board to help us start the business in this industry. He knows people from all walks of life, so that helps in the JV,” said Tan.

On the upcoming film, Tan said it would cost “a couple of million US dollars”, but declined to elaborate as the two companies are still in negotiation.

He expects the new business to start contributing to the group’s earnings in two years, in tandem with the completion of the first movie.

The latest collaboration brings the total number of MoUs that loss-making MNC Wireless has entered into to four over the last two years.

Most recently, it had inked a MoU with Urban Setup Sdn Bhd to develop a mobile gold retail platform in Malaysia.

The platform is slated to be launched by year end, which will allow consumers to buy physical gold via a new mobile application with a minimum fraction value of one sen.