Regal Cinemas to suspend operations at all U.S. theaters

Cineworld Group said it will temporarily suspend operations at all its American and British movie theaters now that crucial income from winter blockbusters has been delayed into 2021 by the coronavirus pandemic.

The world’s second-biggest cinema chain on Thursday plans to close its 536 Regal theaters in the United States and its 127 British locations, including the Picturehouse brand, affecting about 45,000 employees, the company said in a statement Monday.

There are six Regal theater complexes in Indianapolis and the surrounding suburbs.

After dropping as much as 60%, Cineworld Group shares pared losses to a 30% decline in London. They’ve declined about 88% so far this year.

It is now “almost certain” that Cineworld will have to raise additional funds, Natasha Brilliant, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note to clients Monday. The London-listed chain has already said that all funding options are being considered to weather the pandemic, including obtaining around $200 million to $300 million of new funds.

“With a prolonged period of closure, the group would need additional funding from January 2021, when the current revolving credit facility ends,” and the amount raised could be as much as $500 million, Brilliant wrote. “Our concern is that this may be financed at a significant cost.”

The company’s debt soared to $8.5 billion from just $467 million in 2017 as it pursued an international expansion.

Its announcement Monday came after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on Friday delayed the release of the new James Bond movie for the second time, pulling the plug on one of the few big films left on the 2020 release calendar.

Cineworld “cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was,” CEO Mooky Greidinger said in the statement. Cineworld will aim to reopen “when key markets have more concrete guidance on their reopening status and, in turn, studios are able to bring their pipeline of major releases back to the big screen.”

The company had 30,000 employees at the end of 2019, according to its annual report, and also uses contract workers for jobs such as cleaning and security. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on the cuts or measures to reemploy staff.

Monday’s announcement reverses Cineworld’s reopening after the end of the first surge of coronavirus cases. Some 561 of its 778 sites had opened as of Sept. 24. It comes as it faces legal proceedings from Toronto-based Cineplex Inc. after it backed out of a deal that would have created the biggest operator of movie theaters in North America.