There are fresh fears over the future of Cineworld - which has two major picture houses in Aberdeen - after it warned that it may not remain in business long enough to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The cinemas group filed for the protection in the United States in September after disappointing audience numbers over the summer and amid a struggle to contain its debts.
Last week, it agreed a restructuring with a majority of its lenders that would cut its debt by over $4.5 billion and wipe out existing shareholdings.
This set a path for the company to leave bankruptcy, which it said it hoped to do in the first half of this year.
However, The Times reports today that documents filed yesterday in a court in Texas said that Cineworld and its subsidiaries “face uncertainty regarding the adequacy of their liquidity and capital resources”, intensified by operating in a “capital-intensive industry” while also building up legal fees for the bankruptcy proceedings.
Cineworld said that if its cashflow remained at depressed levels or worsened, it would be difficult to take any action that would lead to an improvement. It said it was possible its cashflow may not be enough to fund its operations until it could emerge from bankruptcy protection, the newspaper said.
Yesterday, shares in Cineworld fell by ½p, or more than a third, to just over a penny.
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