Cineworld, the world’s second-biggest cinema chain, is but to obtain any gives to purchase the entire firm out of chapter following a deadline for events to declare their intention to bid.

Joshua Sussberg, a lawyer representing Cineworld, instructed a US chapter courtroom in Texas on Tuesday that the debt-saddled cinema operator had contacted a “broad universe” of about 40 potential suitors to debate a sale since early January.

However whereas Cineworld acquired “many gives” for its operations exterior of the US and the UK, its two greatest markets, potential consumers solely expressed “some strategic curiosity within the full enterprise” and didn’t come ahead with a agency supply. 

Final month, the cinema operator, which owns the Regal Cinemas chain within the US and the Picturehouse model within the UK, initiated a gross sales course of “centered on proposals for the group as an entire”, stressing that it had no plans to promote “any of its property on a person foundation”.

Cineworld, which entered out of business safety final September after crumbling below web debt and lease liabilities that had ballooned to $8.8bn, additionally operates greater than 100 cinemas throughout jap Europe below the Cinema Metropolis model and 10 in Israel. 

Sussberg added that Cineworld “didn’t obtain any all-cash bids and no bid got here anyplace close to the $6bn of secured indebtedness that exists on the corporate’s stability sheet at the moment”. The ultimate deadline for a bid is ready for April 10. 

With no indicators of a purchaser in sight, attorneys for Cineworld and its secured lenders are pushing forward with plans for a debt-for-equity swap, which might give the collectors management of the enterprise and doubtless wipe out the present shareholders. 

A debt for fairness transaction might be permitted by the tip of Might, with a restructuring settlement in place by subsequent week.

“I admit there’s nonetheless some main points excellent however we’re all dedicated on the skilled facet to work by way of and do no matter it takes,” stated Sussberg. 

In October, Cineworld agreed a $1bn debt reimbursement with its first lien lenders, lots of which have been landlords. Following the settlement, the very best precedence lenders at the moment are a bunch of institutional traders, together with Invesco, Eaton Vance and Constancy, generally known as the legacy lender group.

An individual near the group stated it was “no shock” that no bidders got here ahead seeking to spend “billions in money on a struggling firm”. They added that it was nonetheless potential some property could also be bought individually, regardless of Cineworld’s ambitions to keep away from this. 

The individual stated the way forward for Mooky Greidinger, Cineworld’s chief government, who constructed the corporate from a household cinema enterprise in Israel, was nonetheless unknown. 

Late final 12 months, the lenders held talks with rival AMC over promoting a few of Cineworld’s UK and US operations, however the talks fell by way of. 

Sussberg added that gross sales performances at Cineworld, which operates 751 websites globally, had improved in January and February because of Avatar: The Manner of Water and Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and was set to enhance additional as soon as summer season blockbusters arrived on screens.