Pre-tax profits fall for Cineworld
Cineworld, which has cinemas at Bentley Bridge, Wolverhampton, Telford and Shrewsbury, saw profits slide in 2019 despite a rise in revenue and admissions.
The cinema chain saw statutory pre-tax profits fall 39.1 per cent to £165.6 million on the back of higher one-off costs.
Sales increased by 6.1 per cent to £3.4 billion after admissions rose to 275 million for the year, from 272.6m in 2018.
Mooky Greidinger, chief executive officer of Cineworld Group, said: "Cineworld has delivered a solid set of full-year 2019 results despite 2018 being a very strong comparative period.
"We are closely monitoring the evolution of Covid-19 and, so far, we have seen minimal impact on our business.
"However, there can be no certainty on its future impact on our activities, hence we are taking measures to ensure that we are prepared for all possible eventualities."
Cineworld, which has 790 sites around the world, said its Regal chain refurbishment and integration programme progressing well with two sites completed in 2019. A further 20 sites are to be completed in the next 12 months.
It said that in the current year there had been a solid box office performance to date with a compelling film slate scheduled for 2020.
The proposed acquisition of Cineplex, a leading Canadian cinema chain, for US $2.3bn is expected to complete in the first half of 2020 following strong shareholder approval.
Anthony Bloom, chairman of Cineworld Group, said: "In the future, the group will be well positioned to capitalise on our scale as the second largest cinema chain in the world, our deep experience and wide geographic diversification."
He said that Cineworld's achievements were being overshadowed by the negative impact of the global COVID-19 crisis.
"Even though that at the time of writing the group's operations have not been affected to a material degree. I am of course conscious of the possibility that events could develop adversely very quickly and change this position in the short term, but I remain confident that the crisis will ultimately pass and that the cinema exhibition industry will continue to play a major role in providing fun, laughter, happiness and joy to millions of dedicated movie fans, just as it has for over a century," he added.
Upcoming big films for 2020 to be shown at Cineworld include Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun Maverick and the latest James Bond movie No Time To Die.
