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IMHO, Q4 2021 will more than surpass 2019 levels. Remember that concessionary revenues are up substantially from 2019, and we also took a lot of cost-saving measures during the closures.

Henceforth, it will likely be easier for us to generate profit. 2019 box office figures do not necessarily mean 2019 revenue figures for CINE. Just take a look at October where we have concrete figures. 90% of 2019 revenue, but just 91 releases. October 2019 had 217 releases. So 90% revenue with just 42% of the releases. Just goes to show that more people are returning to the cinema, and are spending more money there as well imo.

Hello Cruis1, it’s a common theme amongst movies that use hybrid release schedules (cinemas and streaming at the same time).

Matrix was quite popular in the media (no where near as much as Spider-Man, but hype nevertheless), but if you use a hybrid release then people pirate, people share passwords etc etc and it all results in lost revenue. I remember hearing that there were literally dozens of high definition copies of The Matrix available on the internet right now. Hopefully the studios learn from this and understand that their only way of guaranteeing the best profit possible is through the cinemas.

Black Widow is another example, even Johansson got legal with that one and Disney learnt their lesson, everything big was lined up for theatrical release after that point IIRC.

Happy Boxing Day all :)

I started having a read through the Judge’s decision and it infuriated me to say the least. In the part titled ‘did cineworld want out of the transaction’ she gives Cineworld no benefit of the doubt at all and automatically assumes that we acted in bad faith imo.

When you move to the analysis of Cineworld accusations of Cineplex, suddenly benefit of the doubt comes in. Despite the fact that Cineplex started delaying payables back in very early March the Judge says that the impact of COVID-19 was very much on the horizon due to the delay of one Chinese film. What?? Back in early March 2020 COVID was still an epidemic and Boris was shaking hands in hospital under the impression that COVID was nothing serious. COVID was not declared a pandemic until mid March, so how can you say that Cineplex could see what was coming? I’m assuming the CEO is clairvoyant??

Well, that’s all folks! Market is closed for Christmas and I’m off too :)

Since joining here during the middle of this year (and being invested in CINE since March) it has been a tumultuous time. But some of the people on this board have made it all the more tolerable with helpful information and a good laugh here and there.

Merry Christmas to all, wishing all of you a very good one :)

Will see you on the 26th :D

@marik I have a similar feeling too but if it’s in the agreement, then it’s in the agreement.

If we didn’t go by the terms of the agreement, then we’d be suing Cineplex for $100bn+ or some crazy figure like that.

I remember that JNJ specifically filed for the new ‘burner’ company in Texas because of a legal loophole that exists in that state. Considering Cineworld has business in the US, what stops them from doing the same thing?

I hope Paul Steep is reading lol, surely such a loophole exists if JNJ could do it?

Just reading through the court decision, clause 12 is very interesting:

‘ [12] 1232743 B.C. Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cineworld. It was incorporated solely for the purpose of completing the acquisition of Cineplex. In these Reasons, the term Cineworld includes 1232743 B.C. Ltd., as applicable.’

I also hold Johnson and Johnson stock, and I remember that when they faced tons of lawsuits due to the cancerous baby powder they created a new company solely for the baby powder and then filed for bankruptcy but just for that one small company. As a result, the majority of the court case settlements JNJ had to pay couldn’t be paid out IIRC.

Couldn’t Cineworld technically do the same thing here? 1232743 B.C. Ltd. was created for the Cineplex acquisition, so in reality couldn’t Cineworld just say that 1232743 B.C. Ltd. has no revenue and therefore is bankrupt (or something to that effect) and then the court settlement is no longer a liability to us?

@exapt very good idea indeed :)

I was fully expecting a reply from you FunInvestor, not this quickly though lol.

Thank you for your input, some of that other data you mentioned is difficult to find, but I would guess that in terms of just revenue it is an approx figure.

That remaining $92m to be paid to dissenting shareholders has been placed in an escrow account, so that money is ready and waiting (unless if CINE has used it for additional liquidity which we should have been informed about).

We have no debt to pay back in the entirety of 2022, and a few debts to pay ($712m) in 2023, with the vast majority of the debt maturing in 2025. Quite a lot of breathing room. Cinemas have proven to still be an essential business to the movie industry despite the pandemic and Spider-Man has shown us that the demand is still there. I think we will return to 2019 levels fully for the vast majority of 2022 :)

All the best and as always imo :)

Hussartbr made a good suggestion the other day when he suggested we could just pay the fine with not too much trouble if worst came to worst with regard to the court case.

So I tried to make a calculation as to how much we could have made from Spider-Man so far.

Firstly, I made a calculation of our total market share globally. To do so, I used this table (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_movie_theater_chains) to see that CINE has 9,500 screens (we have slightly less now). Calculating the rest of the cinema chains, we get a total of 43,391. As a percentage, CINE owns about 22% total of these screens. I am using the top 9 global cinema chains only, as that is the info that is readily available. The National Association of Theatre Owners put the figure at about 39,000 total back in 2014-2015, so I have gone with this as a fair figure.

So back to what I was saying, CINE has about 22% of the cinema screens globally. I am making a broad association here, but I am assuming that as we own 22% of the screens worldwide, we also own about 22% of the estate worldwide, and therefore, 22% of the revenue worldwide as well.

Spider-Man is now at $752m worldwide. 22% of this equals $165m thus far AT THE VERY MINIMUM. This figure excludes concessions income, advertising income etc. Considering that Box Office revenue makes up approximately half of our total revenue (53%), and retail makes up about 27% and other income (I include advertising in that figure) makes up about 20%, I think it safe to assume that we can about double that $165m figure to get the income from retail, advertising and other incomes as well.

So all in all, I am estimating about $330m in CINE’s pockets from Spider-Man so far. This is a broad estimation, and it is for sure not the exact figure, give or take a bit. Cineplex court settlement is about $970m (US) (pre-appeal). So with $330m in the first week, and with cinemas still bustling and filling up (I went yesterday and it was about 80% full in the 4DX), I think we can very easily make about half (if not 60% at a push) of that $970m court settlement right from this film alone. $465m in cash at our last earnings report as well and you will actually see that we likely have $970m in our pocket to pay already.

Now of course, there is a catch, the biggest one being that my calculation makes no allowance for outgoings. At the same time, let’s not forget the great amount of money we got from Bond and all the other films too.

Looking altogether, with a year or 2 of this appeal going and some fantastic films in the pipeline still, I personally believe strongly that paying the $1.2bn (CAD) court settlement isn’t going to be a problem at all, and we could very well get that figure reduced at appeal.

It’s nearly 1am, I have inevitably made mistakes most likely or missed something important, please feel free to comment as always :)

All imo.

Sorry to hear that Crumpets, wishing you a speedy recovery!

I must say I’m a bit surprised. I was fully expecting some kind of TR-1 showing a difference in holdings.

Nevertheless, looking on the bright side it means that none of our larger institutional investors sold big (as much as we know so far).

Looks like the 40% drop last week may have been due to retail more than anything else, Cineworld’s stock broker report did state that the order flow was dominated by retail/private investors.

All imo :)

No probs antmoss :)

I get ads all over the page at times antmoss, it’s quite excessive now.

Thank you picklerick, you too!

I enjoy using the analogy of the fact we were burning through $250m/month on average in 2020, so this court case has the same effect as 3-4 months of lockdown closures.

Like Hussartbr mentioned yesterday, with our fantastic success with Spider-Man, it could very much be possible for us to just pay the fine if we needed to. Remember it is actually half the amount that CPX were initially suing for, so it could have been a lot worse :)

Good morning all :)

With regard to a US listing, I don’t think it makes sense to do it now. I think the premise behind the US listing is to allow us to generate a nice bit of extra money, perhaps so we can pay off some of our long term debt. Doing it now means that when it comes to the analysis from the investment bankers, we will get less for our new US listing than if we waited until after our recovery.

In terms of what would happen to shareholders, I wouldn’t worry in any case at all. Remember Mooky is one of the largest shareholders and his family fortunes are in CINE stock, so if he messes us up he gets messed up as well. Whatever he decides to do will likely be in the best interests from him; and as we are shareholders too it will also be in the best interests of ourselves.

All imo, have yourselves a great day :))

Good evening all, this talk about Cineplex not being able to sell concessions is crazy.

Like RS said, concessions have a massive profit margin. I wonder what the reasoning behind that decision is???

Welcome chilston!

I’ve been having some thoughts about CINE and the debt. I think in our case, lenders have much more to lose than to gain if they push for bankruptcy proceedings.

The reason being that if they did that and CINE was forced to liquidate, their assets won’t be worth a lot to anyone else. How much value is a popcorn heater to a bank lol.

Therefore, our assets are only useful to us, so it’s in ours and our lenders’ best interests to keep the company solvent so that we can continue to generate income with those assets.

We have shown that we are profitable and we are nice and open. This new grant for every premises is a nice little help too.

All imo.

Hello FunInvestor, hope you are well.

If it has been discussed before, I may have missed it. I just had a look back at the LTIP and indeed it says that it actually kicks in at 130p (25%) with the full bonus being handed out at 190p. Either way, I think a return to 130p would be absolutely fantastic for us :)

Apologies for the inaccuracy and thank you for pointing it out. Have yourself a pleasant day.

For those concerned about our sp recovery, I’d like to remind you that:

•Mooky’s bonus kicks in at 190p, when that decision was made Cineplex was still a problem (no knowledge of how much we’d be liable for) and we were still in lockdown. Would Mooky have set his bonus threshold that high if there was no hope of it getting there?
•The Convertible Bonds we took out have a conversion price of $1.76. If lenders believed Cineworld wouldn’t reach that price again, then why would they engage in Convertible Bonds with such a conversion price?

Sp staying quite steady today, might top up a bit later. Off to see Spider-Man very shortly as well, but unfortunately have seen a spoiler just yesterday :/ Fairly certain it will still be a pleasure to watch though :)

All imo