AMC Entertainment on Thursday filed with the SEC to sell up to 200 million shares as the embattled exhibitor seeks to keep its business afloat with the global pandemic dragging on.
It could raise $844 million at an estimated offering price of $4.22 per share, based on trading Nov. 30, the filing said. But the stock has been volatile, falling nearly 7% to just over $4 at the market open.
The nation’s largest movie chain noted several months ago that it was fast depleting funds and risked running of cash by late this year or early next if it couldn’t raise more. It has indicated that additional stock sales – it’s done a several already — might be a stopgap as it awaits a hoped for uptick in business and eventual vaccine.
Its SEC prospectus for potential shareholders includes a long list of investment risk factors, including “our ability to obtain additional liquidity, which if not realized or insufficient to generate the material amounts of additional liquidity that will be required until we are able to achieve more normalized levels of operating revenues, likely would result with us seeking an in-court or out-of-court restructuring of our liabilities, and in the event of such future liquidation or bankruptcy proceeding, holders of our common stock and other securities would likely suffer a total loss of their investment.”
Theaters have begun to reopen – again — in some European markets and sentiment around the exhibition has been buoyed somewhat of late as Wonder Women 1984 stayed on the theatrical release schedule, The Croods: A New Age had a relatively strong Thanksgiving weekend, and a vaccine looks set for rapid approval in the U.S. although it’s not expected to be widely available until next year.