Cineworld
Cineworld is a cinema operator headquartered in the UK and is ranked as the second-largest cinema chain in the world after AMC Theaters.
The company has operations in ten countries led by the UK and the USA. Other countries include Romania, Israel, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria.
Cineworld was founded in 1995 by Steve Wiener and opened its first theatre in July 1996 at Stevenage, Hertfordshire. The company went on to open its second theatre in December 1996 and its third theatre in 1998.
The Blackstone Group, a private equity fund, acquired Cineworld in 2004 and acquired the UK and Ireland operations of UGC, a French cinema operator, in 2005.
Cineworld became the second-largest global cinema chain by acquiring other cinema chains and incorporating them under the Cineworld umbrella.
Some of the company’s notable acquisitions include the Picturehouse chain in 2012, the takeover of Cinema City International in 2014, and the 2018 acquisition of Regal Cinemas in the United States.
However, these acquisitions have come at a high cost to the company, which took on massive debt to fund its takeovers.
Cineworld was forced to temporarily close its theatres in March 2020 after the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and later closed them indefinitely in October 2020. The cinema chain has since reopened its theatres but still has a significant debt pile to service.