AMC Entertainment on Thursday reported results for what CEO Adam Aron called “the most challenging quarter in the 100-year history of AMC.”
The cinema chain reported a loss of $561.2 million for the three-month quarter, which ended on June 30. The company’s movie theaters have been shuttered worldwide since mid-March. During the same quarter a year ago, AMC reported earnings of $49.4 million.
AMC’s per-share loss was $5.38. Analysts tracking the stock via Yahoo! Finance expected the company’s loss per share to slightly better at $4.29
Revenue in the second quarter was just $19 million, down roughly 99% from the $1.5 billion in revenue AMC reported last year. Analysts were anticipating $11.9 million in revenue.
“It should be no surprise to anyone that with our operations shut the world over, and almost no revenues coming in the door, this was the most challenging quarter in the 100-year history of AMC. That is why the progress the entire AMC team made since the second quarter began is all the more important and impressive,” Aron said in a statement.
“A once in a century event has transformed 2020 into a brutal year, and movie theatre businesses have been hit particularly hard. Even so, as we look ahead, we remain optimistic about AMC’s long term future,” he continued. “Theatrical exhibition has always been resilient, and we are confident that at AMC we are taking the right steps to emerge from this crisis and to thrive once again as the leader in our industry.”
AMC, like the rest of cinema chains, especially in the U.S., has been decimated by the novel coronavirus pandemic shutting down movie theaters and other businesses. The Kansas-based theater operator has had to take drastic measures to cuts costs and raise capital just to stay afloat.
The company said that cash on hand at the end of the quarter was $498 million, excluding restricted cash of $10.4 million.
As it stands right now, AMC is focusing on reopening theaters. The company has started with theaters overseas, pulling in $900,000 in revenue from overseas markets during the quarter. The company still plans to begin reopening theaters in the U.S.
“In international markets, as of the end of July, we already have resumed operations in more than 130 theaters in all of the countries we serve in Europe and the Middle East. That is more than one-third of our international theatres, and we expect essentially all of them to resume operations in the next two to three weeks,” Aron said. “So far, attendance has been understandably light, as a result of our showing mostly older catalog film content.”