(Adds details, background)
Aug 12 (Reuters) - Cineworld said on Thursday it
was considering a listing of itself or a partial listing of its
movie chain Regal on Wall Street, seeking to boost its liquidity
at a time when it is burning through tens of millions of dollars
every month.
"U.S. equity capital markets are the largest and most liquid
in the world and include a large number of publicly listed
cinema companies including peer group companies," the world's
second-largest cinema chain after AMC said in its
first-half results statement.
The lion's share of London-listed Cineworld's revenue comes
from the United States since its purchase of Regal in 2018.
Cineworld's pretax losses for the first half ended June
narrowed to $576.4 million from $1.64 billion last year, and the
company expects business to improve as vaccination programmes
roll out and as restrictions ease further in the second half of
2021.
The company, saddled with a net debt of $8.44 billion as of
the end of June, had to close all its cinemas at one point last
year, leaving thousands of people out of work, as it took
drastic measures to preserve cash to get through the crisis.
Almost all its cinemas were open as of June.
(Reporting by Muvija M and Chris Peters in Bengaluru; Editing
by Subhranshu Sahu and Susan Fenton)
