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AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. is set to sell its branded popcorn at 2,600 Walmart Inc. stores across the U.S.
On Sunday AMC
AMC,
CEO Adam Aron gave an update on the movie-theater chain and meme-stock darling’s push to sell its popcorn in grocery stores. AMC announced its partnership with Walmart
WMT,
earlier this year, with the popcorn initially available at hundreds of the retail giant’s stores ahead of the Academy Awards on March 12.
“In the early weeks, our popcorn has been selling briskly,” the CEO tweeted Sunday. “Starting this coming weekend, AMC Perfectly Popcorn will start rolling out broadly — on the shelves of 2,600 Walmart stores across the United States.”
Related: It’s National Popcorn Day — and AMC’s CEO is all over it
“I expect we will sell millions of units annually at Walmart alone,” Aron said.
Keen to tap new sources of revenue, the company has also branched out into an AMC-branded Visa Inc.
V,
card. “We are now launched!” tweeted Aron earlier this month.
Last year, Wedbush analyst Alicia Reese said that AMC should avoid “distractions” like credit cards and popcorn and dive deeper into IMAX.
Related: AMC boosted by rebound in foot traffic and Gen Z visits, research finds
The movie-theater chain has been on a roller-coaster ride over the past two years that took it from beleaguered pandemic victim to meme-stock phenomenon. AMC used the steep rise in its share price to tap into equity and debt markets, raising $917 million in January 2021.
AMC’s stock, which has risen 22.6% in 2023, ended Friday’s session up 0.4%, outpacing the S&P 500’s
SPX,
gain of 0.1%. Shares of AMC are down 0.8% in premarket trading Monday.
AMC reports its fiscal first-quarter results before market open on May 5. In a recent report, analytics company Placer.ai noted that cinema attendance has climbed significantly since January 2021, when the theater industry was wrestling with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of February 2023, attendance is tracking at more than 322% above the level in January 2021, according to the research.
Related: AMC growth estimates raised by Benchmark, citing box-office performance
Last week, analyst firm Benchmark raised its growth estimates for AMC, citing better-than-expected domestic box-office performance.
AMC is also looking to resolve its proposed conversion of AMC Preferred Equity units
APE,
into common stock.
In a filing on April 3, AMC announced a settlement that opens the way for the stock conversion, alongside a 10-to-1 reverse stock split and the capacity to sell more shares. The move, which is part of the company’s ongoing battle to eliminate debt, has faced court proceedings.
A judge subsequently denied AMC’s attempt to quickly resolve the court fight.
Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey expects AMC to raise capital as soon as the settlement is resolved. “We think AMC will immediately tap the capital markets on a successful transaction,” he wrote in a note released Friday. “The capital raise would likely be used to provide relief to AMC’s significant net debt obligations.”
At the end of 2022, AMC’s total aggregate principal debt amounted to approximately $4.95 billion, down from $5.17 billion at the end of 2021.
Read more: Latest twist in AMC APE stock-conversion saga more of a ‘hurdle’ than a ‘roadblock’: analyst
AMC describes itself as the largest movie-theater company in the world, with approximately 950 theaters and 10,500 screens across the globe.
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