The owner of the AMC Theatre chain is buying European movie theater operator Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group from private equity firm Terra Firma in a deal that would make it the largest movie theater operator in the world.
AMC is to pay £500 million (US$663 million) in cash and stock. It will also assume £407 million in debt.
AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a call with investors on Tuesday that the deal was spurred on by a British pound at a three-decade low versus the US dollar following Britain’s vote to leave the EU.
“We’re making this acquisition opportunistically,” he said.
London-based Odeon & UCI has 242 theaters in Europe. The deal will give AMC a total of 627 theaters in eight countries.
Odeon & UCI will become an AMC subsidiary and continue operating under its current brand names.
AMC, which was bought by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group (萬達集團) in 2012, is still in the process of trying to buy US movie theater operator Carmike Cinemas Inc of Columbus, Georgia. That transaction, which was announced in March, is valued at US$1.1 billion, including debt.
Wanda bought Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment for US$3.5 billion in January, creating the one-two punch of being a movie maker and distributor at the same time.
That combo helped Legendary’s Warcraft get distributed in a record 68 percent of Chinese theaters last month, despite its lukewarm reception in other countries. The film has grossed US$430 million worldwide so far.
On Tuesday, AMC said that the Odeon & UCI transaction does not affect its ability to complete the Carmike deal.
The company said it has the financing commitments and flexibility to do both.
Aron said in a written statement that there continues to be “considerable risk” to the Carmike deal, as some of Carmike’s shareholders have an “unrealistic view” of the company’s value to AMC.
Aron said that AMC will continue to work with Carmike this week to see if the transaction can be saved.
The deal for Odeon & UCI is expected to close in the fourth quarter. It still needs antitrust clearance by the European Commission and is subject to consultation with the European Works Council.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure