Cineworld falls, AMC rises on reports of cooled bid interest

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) stock opened higher on Wednesday, after a filing showed that it resisted the temptation to buy parts of rival Cineworld (LON:CINE) as part of the latter's chapter 11 bankruptcy process.

In a regulatory filing, AMC said it had held talks with some of Cineworld's creditors about a "potential strategic acquisition" of some of Cineworld's theaters in the U.S. and Europe. AMC would have contributed equity in the form of preferred stock, while assuming some of Cineworld's debts. 

 "A definitive agreement with the Lenders has not been reached regarding the terms of any proposal to be presented to the debtors in the Cineworld cases, and at this time negotiations are not continuing," AMC added. 

The revelations come a couple of weeks after Cineworld denied a report that it was looking at selling its eastern European operations separately as the failed cinema chain tries to recover some value for its creditors. Cineworld, the owner of the Regal theater chain, fell 1.9% in London.

AMC stock rose 0.6% on the news. AMC - one of the hottest 'meme stocks' of 2021 - is now trading back where it was before easy monetary policy and an army of gung-ho retail investors drove its epic short squeeze. Its underlying problems, however, have failed to go away: it is still making heavy losses - over $650 million in the last three quarters - despite the reopening of almost all of its theaters as the pandemic has faded.