AMC Entertainment saw revenue surge to $444 million last quarter from a pandemic-stalled $18.9 million a year ago. Net losses narrowed to $349 million from $561 million. Both beat Wall Street estimates, plumping the volatile stock by more than 7% in late trading.
The nation’s biggest theater chain which struggled mightily to avoid bankruptcy for most of last year before being embraced by chat-room retail investors said it has more than $2 billion in cash available including an untapped revolving credit facility.
Chairman-CEO Adam Aron will lead a conference call at 5 pm ET to talk about the exhibitor’s numbers and prospects. Meanwhile, his comments from the earnings release are below. He said the company “is not out of the woods” yet but predicted “a happy Hollywood ending.”
“The second quarter of 2021 was transformational for AMC. We raised yet another $1.25 billion of new equity capital (before commissions and fees) in the quarter, boosting our quarter ending liquidity to more than $2 billion (including cash and undrawn revolving lines of credit) which is about double the previous highest ever such mark in AMC’s 101-year history. We believe this gives AMC financial staying power to navigate boldly amidst coronavirus waters. And by June 30, substantially all of our theatres were open again to entertain and delight our guests.
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“Thanks to increased vaccination counts in the countries we serve, we started to see rising movie going demand, and we safely welcomed more than 22 million guests back to our theatres across the globe during the course of the second quarter. New blockbuster films released during the quarter drove successive new pandemic-era box office records. And fortunately for us, as guests returned to our theatres, they splurged on our food & beverage offerings, which admittedly is quite a high-margin business. At the same time, we diligently managed our costs in every aspect of our operations.
“These actions produced financial results in the quarter that were considerably well ahead of our own and third-party expectations.” Aron added, “AMC’s journey through this pandemic is not finished, and we are not yet out of the woods. However, while there are no guarantees as to what the future will bring in a still infection-impacted world, one can look ahead and envision a happy Hollywood ending to this story. We would like to think that someday when a movie is filmed about AMC and COVID, its title will be one compelling word, ‘Recovery.’ But, only time will tell.”
Aron concluded, “It is also worth noting that our sheer will to drive through this COVID-19 crisis clearly resonated amongst those who also were committed to our survival, because seeing movies in theatres has been a central part of the cultural fabric of society the world over for decades and decades and decades. There are many who shared our passion that moviegoing at our theatres should continue for future generations. Accordingly, we are ever so grateful to the friends and allies that AMC has gathered along the way. They can take comfort in knowing that as we rebuild our company, our deeper cash reserves allow us to stay the course, to innovate again and to capitalize on opportunities around us. In short, as the largest movie theatre operator in the world, AMC is playing on offense again.”