(Bloomberg) -- A plan by Cineworld’s UK arm to slash rent costs in a restructuring was given the green light by a London judge, in spite of opposition from some of the cinema chain’s landlords.
Cineworld is using a British restructuring plan to reduce the rent burden on a business it says is reeling from the effects of last year’s screenwriter strike. A unit of the £4 billion ($5.4 billion) listed property firm Tritax Big Box REIT Plc and the Crown Estate challenged the cinema chain’s restructuring last week, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
Their challenge centered on agreements that Cineworld struck with the two landlords in September 2023 that pledged to not compromise leases on certain sites in any future restructuring. Cineworld said that it would run out of money at the end of September if the plan was not implemented.
Cineworld filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US in 2022, after Covid-linked lockdowns led to the enforced closing of many of its cinemas. In August last year the firm delisted from the London Stock Exchange and was effectively taken over by its lenders. The firm has more recently been affected by a reduction in the number of films released as a result of screen writers and actors’ strikes in 2023.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
