South Bristol’s last cinema faces further risk of closure

Cineworld in Hengrove faces further risk of closure after the cinema chain announced it had so far been unable to find a potential buyer willing to pay for the whole business. The cinema at Hengrove Leisure Park is already under threat due to approved plans to knock it down for up to 350 new homes.

Last Autumn the company, which has 103 cinemas in the UK and Ireland, went into administration and is currently £5billion in debt. Administrators have said they hope the firm can recover before the middle of 2023, and the cinemas are still fully operational. However, its future remains uncertain with proposals now being considered for a purchase of only some of the group’s business.

Cineworld at Hengrove Leisure Park is the last cinema in south Bristol. Already, under the plans by the site owners AEW UK, the cinema is due to be knocked down along with the bingo hall for a major homes development at the retail park. This latest announcement adds to the uncertainty. Other Cineworld cinemas at risk include those in Weston-super-Mare and Yate.

A spokesperson for Cineworld said: “The company has now received non-binding proposals from a number of potential transaction counterparties for some or all of the group’s business.

“The company is reviewing such proposals in conjunction with its advisers and key stakeholders and, whilst no decision has been made as to whether to pursue a sale transaction, and the terms of any such transaction remain uncertain, based on the proposals received to date, it is not expected that any sale transaction will provide any recovery for the holders of the company’s equity interests.”

Russ Mould, the investment director at the analysts AJ Bell, quoted in the Guardian, said: “We could see a break-up of the group even though Cineworld has previously said it had no plans to sell individual assets. Cineworld has paid the price for being too aggressive with its growth ambitions, weighed down by significant debt when the pandemic struck and the subsequent reopening of the cinema industry being too weak to repair its finances.”