Cineworld reveals cinema closures as part of restructuring plan | Business News

Cineworld has confirmed that six cinemas will close as part of plans to cut jobs and save money as the company faces debt.

Cinemas will close at the “end of September 2024” if the cost-cutting plans are legally approved.

They are:

• Glasgow Parkhead;

•Bedford;

•Hinckley;

• Loughborough;

• Yate;

• Swindon – Regent Circus.

A statement released on Saturday described them as “commercially unviable”.

It stated: “In a context of increasingly high and unsustainable operating costs, the company is prepared to implement a restructuring plan that will enable it to address its rental portfolio and rental terms with landlords in the UK.”

The chain hopes to “return our business to profitability” and “secure a long-term sustainable future for Cineworld in the UK”, it added.

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Employees of cinemas slated for closure will be “offered relocation to nearby locations” as far as possible, and locations abandoned by the chain will be taken over by rivals.

The statement adds that “the total number of impacted locations cannot be confirmed until the process is complete.”

Sky News reported on Thursday that the restructuring plan could see 25 UK cinemas close their doors.

The company stressed that “a restructuring plan is not bankruptcy – but a legal process”, which will allow it to make efficiencies profitable again.

Its cinemas outside the UK will not be affected.

Billions of debt led to bankruptcy protection

Cineworld currently operates more than 100 sites in Britain, including the Picturehouse chain, and employs thousands of people, although its public relations consultant declined to confirm any of the figures.

It grew under the leadership of the Greidinger family and became a global industry giant, acquiring chains such as Regal in the US in 2018 and the British company of the same name four years earlier.

However, its mountain of multibillion-dollar debt led it into crisis and forced the company to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2022.

It left the London Stock Exchange last August, after seeing its share price fall due to fears for its survival.

Under the deal reached last year, several billion dollars of debt was swapped for equity, with a significant sum of new money injected into the company by a group of hedge funds and other investors.

After emerging from bankruptcy protection, it appointed a new leadership team, naming Eduardo Acuna, who ran the operations of Mexican cinema chain Cinepolis in the Americas, as its chief executive.