Leawood’s AMC Theatres is sticking around in 2021 — despite previous concerns about not making it to a post-pandemic era.
In a press release this week, the company said it secured “$917 million of new equity and debt capital” between Dec. 14, 2020 and Jan. 25. Coupled with another $1 billion accrued between April and November 2020, Adam Aron, president and chief executive officer, said in the release “the sun is shining on AMC” and “any talk of an imminent bankruptcy” is off the table.
Still, Aron said more work lies ahead. The Leawood-based company is hoping for an uptick in in-theater customers as a COVID-19 becomes more widely available this winter and into the spring.
“For AMC to succeed over the medium term, we are going to need for much of the general public in the U.S. and abroad to be vaccinated,” Aron said in the release.
“To that end, we are grateful to the world’s medical communities for their heroic efforts to thwart the COVID virus. Similarly, we welcome the commitment by the new Biden administration and of other governments domestically and internationally to a broad-based vaccination program.”
In October 2020, AMC Theatres told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could run out of money by the end of 2020, or early 2021.
At that time, the company noted its theaters had experienced an 85% drop in attendance in U.S. markets during the coronavirus pandemic.
