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In the wake of UK’s Cineworld’s $3.6 billion acquisition plans for Regal Cinemas, the CEO of the largest theater chain in the world, AMC’s Adam Aron, told Bloomberg that the exhibitor has received interest from six different companies over the last three months. Deadline has confirmed the news. These parties are looking to take stake in AMC or buy it outright. That said, AMC can’t be sold without the OK of its majority shareholder, China’s Dalian Wanda.
Deadline understands that at the current moment AMC doesn’t intend to sell. The exhibitor’s stock has taken a 59% tumble over the last year with a current trading price as of 9:47 AM PST of $14.45, however, that’s largely been due to the exhibition sector getting hit by the 4% downturn in U.S./Canada movie ticket sales. Aron’s point from his conversation as we’ve been informed is that the CEO was pointing out that other parties out there are intrigued by the upside of the exhibition business; that’s it’s still lucrative.
As Disney looks to acquire assets of 21st Century Fox, it only makes sense for exhibition to bulk up as the majors studios consolidate.
Aron also mentioned that AMC doesn’t have plans to launch a monthly subscription movie ticket service like Cinemark’s. The fact of the matter is that AMC already has a two tier loyalty program Stubs (gratis or $15/year) with several perks, and it’s cheaper than Cinemark’s $8.99/a month service.
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Deadline
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