* H1 pretax loss $576.4 mln vs $1.64 bln loss
* Expects theatrical window to stabilise in 2022 to 20-60
days
* Shares jump 8% in early trading
(Adds comments from call, updates shares)
By Muvija M and Chris Peters
Aug 12 (Reuters) - Cineworld is considering a Wall
Street listing for all or part of its business in an effort to
bolster its finances which are under heavy pressure from the
coronavirus pandemic.
A U.S. listing would give heavily indebted Cineworld access
to the largest capital market in the world, where rival U.S.
cinema group AMC this year became one of the so-called
"meme stocks", sending its shares skyrocketing.
Shares in Cineworld, which gets the bulk of its revenue from
its Regal cinemas in the United States, jumped 8% by 0833 GMT on
the FTSE midcap index.
"We believe this is quite an interesting consideration which
could be supportive of valuation if we were to see similar
support in Regal as was with AMC," BofA analysts wrote.
The company, which had net debt of $8.44 billion as of the
end of June, said cash burn was $271 million in the first six
months of the year, while losses narrowed to $576.4 million from
$1.64 billion last year thanks to tighter cost control.
Rival AMC, the world's biggest cinema theatre group, has
also reported a big quarterly loss, saying ticket sales were
running at less than one-third of 2019 levels.
NEW RELEASES
People have flocked back to cinemas in the past few months
to watch movies such as Marvel's "Black Widow" and Paramount
thriller "A Quiet Place 2".
Cineworld boss Mooky Greidinger expressed confidence in a
line-up of big releases ahead, including four new Marvel movies
and Tom Cruise's "Top Gun Maverick", the new James Bond movie,
"The Matrix 4" and science fiction film "Dune".
All of Cineworld's 787 sites were open as of June, with
Greidinger saying ticket sales were now at more than 50% of
pre-crisis levels, as the United States and the UK eased months
of pandemic curbs after vaccination drives picked up pace.
But concerns over new variants of the virus and an
accelerated shift by studios to release movies simultaneously on
streaming platforms are still a cause for concern.
Cineworld said it was expecting the window for movie
releases in theatres to stabilise to somewhere between 20 and 60
days by next year.
"One of the most significant things that we all learned from
the short window is that it creates an opportunity for
high-quality pirated copies which is going all over the world,"
Greidinger said.
(Reporting by Muvija M and Chris Peters in Bengaluru; Editing
by Subhranshu Sahu, Susan Fenton, Anil D'Silva and Jane
Merriman)