While the theatrical market continues to struggle due to the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic, AMC Theatres has found a way to stay afloat for a little while longer. On Monday morning, the theater chain announced that it had acquired an addition $917 million in new equity and debt capital. According to AMC, this will allow AMC to keep functioning as it is throughout most of 2021, which will hopefully give theaters time to open back up in full.
With the vaccine rollout beginning in the United States and plenty of other countries, there is hope that there will be a return to normalcy with movie theaters by later this year. For AMC to remain open in its limited capacity until then, it needed to find some extra cash to weather the storm, which it did with Monday's announcement.
According to the company's statement, this new addition of funds should allow AMC to make it through this dark coronavirus-impacted winter.”
“Today, the sun is shining on AMC," said CEO and president Adam Aron. "After securing more than $1 billion of cash between April and November of 2020, through equity and debt raises along with a modest amount of asset sales, we are proud to announce today that over the past six weeks AMC has raised an additional $917 million capital infusion to bolster and solidify our liquidity and financial position. This means that any talk of an imminent bankruptcy for AMC is completely off the table.”
“Looking ahead, for AMC to succeed over the medium term, we are going to need for much of the general public in the U.S. and abroad to be vaccinated,” he continued. “To that end, we are grateful to the world’s medical communities for their heroic efforts to thwart the COVID virus. Similarly, we welcome the commitment by the new Biden administration and of other governments domestically and internationally to a broad-based vaccination program.”
Part of what has kept the theaters afloat to this point is the deal with Universal studios, which allows the films released by Universal to play in AMC Theatres locations for two weeks before they're sent online for on-demand rentals.