AMC CEO Is 'Confident And Optimistic' About Cinema Chain's Future As Q3 Earnings Show Revenue Beat, Record Food & Beverage Results

Movie theater company AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC reported third-quarter financial results after market close Wednesday.

Here are the key highlights.

What Happened: For the third quarter, the Leawood, Kansas-based company reported:

• Revenue of $1.35 billion, down 4.1% year-over-year, beat a Street consensus estimate of $1.33 billion per Benzinga Pro.
• A loss of 6 cents per share, versus a profit of 8 cents per share in last year's third quarter.
• The earnings per share beat a Street consensus estimate of a loss of 11 cents per share.
• Total attendance of 65.1 million people. That’s down 11.5% year-over-year.
• U.S. attendance was 46.9 million people, down 8.9% year-over-year.
• International attendance was 18.2 million people, down 17.6% year-over-year.
• $527.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.

"I am almost euphoric about the vital improvements lodged at AMC Entertainment during the third quarter of 2024, with our achieving two important milestones in what has been a long road toward a post-COVID recovery," AMC CEO Adam Aron said.

Aron mentioned several milestones:

• Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter was the second-best third-quarter total in the company's 104-year history.
• Net debt improved with $2.4 billion in long-term debt pushed out to 2029 and 2030 from 2026.
• Third-quarter revenue was 31% higher than the company's second-quarter total.
• A new record for third-quarter admissions revenue per patron
• An all-time record for any quarter for food and beverage revenue per patron.

Aron expects “the greatly improving industry-wide box office throughout the third quarter” to continue.

“It is especially encouraging that because we have worked so hard to put in place operational and financial efficiencies, we realized Adjusted EBITDA in this just completed quarter that was in-line with the pre-pandemic third quarter of 2019, even though our attendance in the just completed quarter was 25% lower than the same quarter in 2019,” he said.

Read Also: AMC Q3 Earnings Preview: Can ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Box Office Strength Lift Stock?

What's Next: The company said it completed several transactions related to debt already in the fourth quarter.

While the company fell short of several third-quarter metrics compared to the prior year, there is excitement ahead.

"We believe of much greater importance is our bullishness about the impressive movie slate that is coming to our theaters in November and December of 2024, and continuing in 2025 and again in 2026," Aron said.

"We are well aware that we still have work ahead of us to navigate our way forward, but those quite real challenges notwithstanding, we are nonetheless confident and optimistic about our future,” he said.

Price Action: AMC stock is down 5% to $4.36 in after-hours trading Wednesday, versus a 52-week trading range of $2.38 to $11.88.

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