Adam Aron On Oscars, AMC’s Gold Mine, Maintaining Relations With Studios, Streamers & 4 Million Shareholders – CinemaCon

deadline.com:

AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said an earlier gig as chief executive of the Philadelphia 76ers got him active on social media, tweeting with his hometown NBA team’s fan base.

The experience proved key navigating a dramatic transformation in the theater chain’s shareholder base from mostly institutions to about 4 million private individuals.Until early last year, AMC shares were 80% owned by institutions.

Then it became a meme stock. “We learned in March of 2021 that there had been a dramatic change. It was suddenly 80% owned by retail shareholders. [But] the need was still there for AMC to talk to our shareholders, explain what we were doing, why we were doing it, build consensus for our strategies and tactics,” Aron told Deadline in a wide-ranging interview from CinemaCon in Las Vegas about the state of the industry and the giant exhibitor’s strategy and outlook.The usual playbook of quarterly earnings, analysts, investor conferences and road shows wouldn’t be communicating with the new crowd. “It was completely uncharted waters.

I’ve never heard of any other company figuring out what we had to figure out in 2021. So I went on Twitter. And what’s happened ever since has been a very active, vibrant, two-way exchange of information.” Aron follows about 2,500 AMC stockholders.He’s also managing relations with studios and streamers at an inflection point for Hollywood, continuing to shore up the company’s finances (which are improving, AMC had $5.5 billion in debt and $1.8 billion in cash at the end of Dec.) and diversifying AMC’s business to include a stake in a Nevada mine fallen on hard times but, he said, with proven deposits of 60 million ounces of gold.Aron stressed AMC is a movie chain first and that it’s eyeing