The WWE held an investors conference call earlier today to discuss the report which was almost uneventful until the Q&A. Answering questions were CEO Linda McMahon, COO Donna Goldsmith and CFO George Barrios. They talked about reducing their overseas operations and closing down offices in Australia and Canada. They said they still have a few employees in those countries as well as Mexico and China but their office in London, England will be now be their main overseas base.

They were asked about their declining PPV buys and they said the strategy will remain the same so there won't be a reduction in PPV events for 2009/10. They noted video game sales were flat but had some exciting new projects in the works.

Somebody asked about the profitability of the movie "Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia". They said production cost was around the $4-5M mark and said the DVD has so far moved around 100,000 units. In actual fact the movie has sold over 180,000 units to date for just over $3.5M in revenues. They said they will be looking at international clearance for the movie but it appears they will be lucky to turn a profit on that project.


They said they would take one more question, and boy was it a good one. One investor, who seemed agitated, asked George Barrios what the logic was in using the company cash reserves to help meet dividend payments rather than reinvest. He gave an answer without really answering the question so the investor told Barrios that his answer didn't make any sense. "It might not make sense to you," Barrios replied. The call was then abruptly terminated without any thank you or goodbye.

(credit: Mike Aldren, The Wrestling Globe Newsletter)