News

AMC Entertainment chief executive Adam Aron saw a 2023 compensation package of $25.4 million — up from $23.7 million a year ago – inflated by stock awards worth $17.9 million along with a cash bonus of $6 million bonus and a $1.5 million base salary.

In a proxy statement filed with the SEC, the compensation committee of the world’s biggest exhibitor cited progress on several fronts last year in a challenging climate for theatrical as Hollywood strikes interrupted a nascent post-Covid recovery.

However, shares have tanked from their meme-stock highs and there’s been some pushback on CEO pay at AMC (and other entertainment companies). Aron was quick to turn to X, formerly Twitter, noting that the number is not what it seems.

“Our draft proxy shows I was awarded AMC stock in 2023 (that I can not sell any time soon) valued using SEC required methodology at $17.9 million. At yesterday’s closing share price, it is actually...

AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron received compensation of $25.4 million in 2023, up from $23.7 million in 2022 and $18.9 million in 2021, according to the cinema giant’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That included a base salary of $1.5 million, stock awards of $17.9 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation of $6 million.

In early 2021, AMC became a popular stock among “meme” traders after the company appeared close to bankruptcy amid the pandemic fallout at movie theater chains.

The stock surge helped the company strengthen its financial position and diversify its revenue streams — the latest initiative is starting to sell branded microwave and ready-to-eat movie popcorn varieties, initially at Walmart.

Aron’s base salary was $1.5 million in 2023, flat from $1.5 million in 2022 and from $1.45 million a year earlier. He took home a bonus of $5 million in 2020, but received no bonus during the last two years.

The SEC filing also revealed that CFO Sean Goodman...

AMC Theatres shareholders yet again voted against the compensation packages proposed for its executive officers, including CEO Adam Aron, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

In a largely symbolic move, stockholders holding 20,442,308 shares voted against the pay package, while those holding 19,565,042 voted for it. Aron received compensation of $23.7 million in 2022, up 25 percent from $18.9 million in 2021.

Among the other disclosed executive salaries, CFO Sean Goodman received $6.27 million in overall compensation in 2022, up from a year-earlier $4.7 million pay package.

Aron’s 2021 compensation, and that of other executives, was also voted down by shareholders last year, with 86,896,550 in shares voting against and those holding 52,148,743 in shares voted in favor.

These votes are non-binding, and therefore do not carry any financial ramifications, but may show that some investors are not happy with the compensation packages or perhaps with management. AMC Theatres became a meme stock in 2021, and saw...

While AMC Theatres beat Wall Street projections with a slightly profitable second quarter and is expecting more strong earnings in Q3, the company’s top execs warned that the chain’s future would still be “in jeopardy” if its plan to raise capital through a proposed stock conversion is not approved by a Delaware court.

“In the short term, AMC has some serious liquidity issues to solve. We should not oversimplify that it will be easy to overcome the obstacles and hurdles in our path,” CEO Adam Aron said in an earnings call on Tuesday.

Thanks to multiple Hollywood blockbusters like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” AMC Theaters reported its highest quarterly attendance since the Covid-19 pandemic began and revenue of $1.34 billion. Net income was reported at $8.6 million — or 1 cent per share — up from last year’s Q2 loss of 12 cents per share...

Cinema giant AMC Theatres swung to a second-quarter profit as revenue jumped 15.6 percent to $1.35 billion and touted its highest quarterly attendance in years, but also issued a warning of possible liquidity challenges ahead.

Earnings for the second quarter hit $8.6 million, compared to a loss of $121.6 million in the comparable period of 2022, the company reported on Tuesday. It also saw a 12.2 percent gain in attendance year-over-year.

CEO Adam Aron, in an after-markets analyst call, said the third quarter of 2023 had kicked off well due to Barbie, Oppenheimer, Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Sound of Freedom playing on his company’s screens.

“The stakes are high and we’re surrounded by some uncertainties and risks. But it’s certainly encouraging for us all to take a moment this afternoon and celebrate our immensely positive results in the most recently completed quarter,” Aron insisted. But AMC still has some ways...

Click here to read the full article.

In a symbolic move, shareholders of AMC Theatres voted against the pay packages of company officials, including CEO Adam Aron, the exhibition giant disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

In a non-binding tally, stock holders with 86,896,550 in shares voted against the compensation paid to AMC’s executive officers, while those holding 52,148,743 in shares voted in favor of the disclosed pay.

In April, the theater chain disclosed that Aron was paid 18.9 million in 2021, down from 20.9 million in 2020 when theaters were mostly closed for months amid the pandemic. Among other top execs, CFO Sean Goodman made 4.7 million and exec vp of operations John D. McDonald took home 3.4 million in 2021.

Since the vote is non-binding, there’s no financial ramifications to the move by shareholders, but it’s a signal to the theater chain’s leadership that some investors weren...

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron saw his overall pay dip in 2021 to 18.9 million, down from the 20.9 million he earned in 2020 despite the worldwide shutdown of movie theaters, according to a disclosure of executive compensation in an SEC filing Friday.

Aron received a base pay salary that was 20 higher than last year’s, earning 1.45 million, but he also took home 11.4 million in stock awards and 6 million from non-equity incentive plan compensation.

Though his base salary was lower in 2020, Aron had received a 5 million bonus for helping the company navigate the pandemic, as well as increased stock awards as a result of some of the AMC surging after becoming a meme stock last year thanks to traders on Reddit. Overall his 2020 salary more than doubled compared to 2019, when Aron made only 9.6 million.

Company CFO Sean Goodman saw a slight boost in his pay in 2021, making 4.7 million compared to 4.2 million in 2020, driven by his own higher base salary.

Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, said tickets for The Batman will cost more than other movies when it opens this week as the chain experiments with variable pricing.

“Currently, our prices for The Batman are slightly higher than the prices we are charging for other movies playing in the same theaters at the same time,” Aron said during a webcast following quarterly earnings. He said the move follows a few years after it successfully raised weekend pricing above midweek levels at some of its U.S. locations.

“This is all quite novel in the United States, but actually AMC has been doing it for years in our European theaters. Indeed, in Europe we charge a premium for the best seats in the house — as do just about all sellers of tickets in other industries — take sports events, concerts and live theater, for example.” Aron sees “considerable upside opportunity ahead...

AMC Entertainment said sales jumped and losses narrowed for the three months ended in December as the pandemic receded and Spider-Man rocked the theater chain to its best quarter in two years.

Revenue of $1.17 billion compared to $162.5 million in the year earlier period. Net losses shrank to $134.4 million, including a non-cash impairment charge related to long lived assets of $77.2 million, versus a net loss of $946 million.

“We are quite bullish that for the full calendar year of 2022 the industry box office could be nearly double that of 2021, with Covid impacts easing, with more and more major films on the docket for release, and with most major studios coalescing around an exclusive theatrical window of 45 days or more,” said CEO Adam Aron.

The shares are up nearly 4% in after-hours trade. Aron is currently on a call with investors discussing the numbers and outlook for the chain.

It’s been a volatile...

AMC Theatres has promoted Dan Ellis from SVP, Development and International to EVP, Chief Operations & Development Officer. In addition, the No 1 exhibitor has hired Eliot Hamlisch as EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, after an extensive national search.

Given Ellis’ new role, international duties, which previously reported to Ellis will shift instead to be supervised by AMC EVP & CFO Sean Goodman.

Ellis succeeds John McDonald, who is retiring as the head of U.S. Operations after a 47-year movie theatre career, all with AMC.

Hamlisch takes over marketing leadership from Stephen Colanero, who is retiring after 12 years as the CMO at AMC.

The retirements of Colanero and McDonald have been long in the making. Each executive stayed committed to the circuit during the Covid impacted years of 2020 and 2021.

Hamlisch joins AMC from Wyndham Hotels & Resorts where he served as EVP, Loyalty and Revenue Optimization. Prior to Wyndham, Hamlisch worked for Starwood Hotels & Resorts,...

In early January, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron announced a New Year’s Resolution to refinance high interest debt the chain took on to survive the pandemic. Today, the WSJ reports he’s “in advanced talks with multiple parties” to do just that but a dip in the company’s stock (and its bonds) hasn’t helped.

“The precipitous share price decline puts them in a more precarious position to refinance high interest debt and extend maturity — a worse position than they were a month or two ago,” said Alicia Reese of Wedbush Securities. Bur she noted that AMC had, earlier, been “really successful refinancing before the retail investors came in.”

If it can’t refinance or there’s a snag, it means the company would have to shell out cash, or more of it and sooner than it would like, to pay down interest due.

An AMC rep declined to comment.

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron has sold another tranche of stock, the latest in a flurry of selling he had warned investors was coming but said today is now over.

According to an SEC filing, the exec unloaded 312,500 shares yesterday at $22.846 — so about $7.14 million. Last month, he divested $9.65 million worth of shares in one sale after unloading a first tranche of stock for about $25 million.

Aron had advised stockholders publicly on AMC’s last earnings call that he’d be selling shares for estate planning purposes and said it wasn’t a big deal but the extent of the selling caught some investors by surprise in December. The company’s Reddit-fueled meme-stock attraction is all about loyalty — investors holding onto shares with “diamond hands,” meaning through thick or thin come what may. The concept is to thwart short sellers,...

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said a Canadian court ruling requiring its biggest rival to pay a hefty fine is an “opportunity,” leaving Wall Street and AMC’s own legion of retail investors wondering what he meant.

Last summer, in the midst of the pandemic, Cineworld, the UK-based parent of Regal Cinemas, scrapped a deal to merge with Cineplex of Canada, citing breaches of contract. Cineplex sued and just yesterday a judge awarded it damages of $1.24 billion Cad (nearly $1B US) and denied a counterclaim by Cineworld, which said it plans to appeal.

“A Canadian court just ruled that Regal/Cineworld, our largest competitor in the U.S./Europe, must pay nearly $1 billion Usd in damages over the failed Cineplex merger. Will be appealed, but anything distracting or destabilizing our biggest competitor brings opportunity to AMC,” Aron tweeted along with an image of piles of cash.

He got some pushback.

It was a very rough year for AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest theater chain. Its theaters were dark for months as coronavirus spread around the world, and when some cities and states gave the green light for its cinemas to open back up, Hollywood opted to delay many of its highest-profile releases or send them to streaming services. At various points, AMC teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

And yet, Adam Aron, the man tasked with leading the company through these treacherous times, profited handsomely. The AMC chief’s total compensation more than doubled in 2020, topping out at $20.9 million in salary, stock and bonuses, according to public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s compared to the $9.7 million that Aron received in compensation in 2019 and the $9.5 million he earned in 2018.

Aron received only $1.1 million of his 2020 compensation in salary. He got $5 million from two performance-based bonuses, one...

In today’s film news roundup, Neil Young’s “Mountaintop” is coming, AMC replaces its CFO, Bob Weinstein is starting anew, and Ed Begley, Jr. and David Koechner join “Reboot Camp.”

Music Documentary

Abramorama is partnering with Shakey Pictures and Reprise / Warner Records to release the Neil Young documentary “Mountaintop.”

The movie, which chronicles the making of Young and Crazy Horse’s studio album “Colorado,” will open in North America on Oct. 22 and in Europe and South American on Nov. 8. Young produced using his pseudonym Bernard Shakey, marking his 13th collaboration with Abramorama dating back to “Greendale,” and Jonathan Demme’s trilogy.

Abramorama CEO Richard Abramowitz said, ”The only thing better than working on a Bernard Shakey film is working on another Bernard Shakey film. Providing fans around the world with the opportunity to see how Neil and the band put it all together is a particularly rare and exciting experience.

AMC Entertainment in an 8-k filing today announced that CFO Craig Ramsey is retiring on Feb. 28, 2020 after achieving 25 years of service with the theatrical exhibitor. In his place, AMC has tapped Sean Goodman as its new CFO. He’s currently the CFO of Fortune 500 company Asbury Automotive Group and he’ll start working with the chain as Evp Finance on Dec. 2.

A seamless transition is expected with the two executives working closely together, and Goodman assuming the Chief Financial Officer title upon Ramsey’s retirement.

Goodman has more than 30 years of finance experience including leading Financial Planning and Analysis as well as Business Development at Home Depot in Atlanta, was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in London and worked for Deloitte & Touche in South Africa and New York. He has U.S. public company CFO experience at Asbury Automotive Group. In addition to his almost 20 years working in the United States,...

Janice Dickinson is hailing herself as a Hero this morning ... after chasing down a man suspected of jacking a bag from a male go-go dancer, TMZ has learned. The whole thing started around 5:30 Am outside the famous Abbey nightclub in West Hollywood -- when one of the go-go dancers, Sean Goodman, was doing a live TV interview with a local news reporter. During the interview, the reporter announced that she Just watched someone steal...