AMC Theatres Seeks to Raise $800 Million in Cash by Selling New Shares Amid Pandemic

AMC Theatres is selling 200 million new shares of its stock to help raise cash as it continues to confront theater closures and restricted operations in North America, according to a filing with the SEC on Thursday.

The nation’s largest theater chain could raise as much as $844 million at an estimated offering price of $4.22 per share, based on a stock price from Monday, but the stock opened at just under $4.00 on Thursday and has proven to be volatile as the pandemic has battered the exhibition industry.

The company says it will be limited by “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.”

Back in October, AMC said it would be out of cash by the end of 2020 if conditions do not improve or if there is not a vaccine for the virus available. So far, it has already done several new sales of stock to boost its cash reserves.

Without a major uptick in attendance or an injection of new funding, the company previously said, “existing cash resources would be largely depleted by the end of 2020 or early 2021. … to meet its obligations as they become due, the Company will require additional sources of liquidity or increases in attendance levels. The required amounts of additional liquidity are expected to be material.”

Alternative methods for AMC to achieve liquidity include borrowing money, taking on investors, selling off assets, attempting to renegotiate theater leases and simply hoping attendance levels are able to increase as COVID-19 continues to shut down everyday American life.

The theater chain reacted to the news that “Wonder Woman 1984,” one of the presumed largest blockbusters of 2020, would open day-and-date on Christmas Day both in theaters and on HBO Max, by saying that “atypical circumstances” call for “atypical windows.”