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LOS ANGELES — Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the movie studio behind the "Saw" horror franchise, said Monday it posted a larger-than-expected loss for its fiscal fourth quarter, though revenue came in better than forecast.
The company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., and Vancouver, British Columbia, said Monday its loss amounted to $29 million, or 25 cents per share. That reversed a year-ago profit of $29.8 million, or 22 cents per share.
Revenue fell 9 percent to $463.2 million from $511.5 million in the year-ago period.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected, on average, a smaller loss of 11 cents per share. Revenue, however, topped Wall Street's $446 million estimate.
Shares rose 6 cents to close earlier at $6.26, but slipped 36 cents or nearly 6 percent to $5.90 in after-hours trading on Monday.
For the full year, its loss widened to $163.0 million, or $1.40 per share, from $74.0 million, or 62 cents per share, in fiscal 2008. Annual revenue rose 8 percent to $1.47 billion from $1.36 billion the prior year.
The company plans to discuss its results in a conference call early Tuesday.
Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer said in a statement that the company ended the year on a strong note with a record box office in the quarter ended in March.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has amassed a 14.5 percent stake in Lions Gate, while his former chief investment adviser, Mark Rachesky, has boosted his stake to 19.999 percent.
If any person takes more than a 20 percent stake, a default could be triggered on the company's revolving credit line.
Last week, Lions Gate said it will sell a 49 percent stake in the TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com to Allen Shapiro and One Equity Partners, a unit of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., for $123 million.
It acquired the TV Guide assets in February for about $250 million from Macrovision Solutions Corp.
Before the sale, the company said it had $138.5 million in cash at the end of March.
