What is going on? We are doing a little uh after market close special with the amc earnings call today it should be coming out in about 15 minutes. We are doing this live. Remember the report comes out. We get those the numbers uh right here you could.

If you're on weeble, you probably saw this amc, entertainment earnings per share, misses by four cents. Amc um earnings per share. A dollar 42 misses dollar 26 estimate amc, misses revenue estimate. I was kind of talking about this on the live stream today.

Remember we're kind of living in a world where the bar for amc is not being set that high, because we understand that theaters were severely impacted not only over the past fiscal quarter, but really over. The past year, so i think it's all going to come down to really what we're going to see on the earnings call like because they're going to give future guidance. I hopefully they have commentary about the 3 million plus individual shareholders, there's a lot of things that can be said that are very, very pivotal to what's going on beyond just these numbers. Please keep that in mind should be starting in about 15 minutes.

We're gon na get that um for you live i'm just checking in on the webcast all right, please register. Let me get this registered the website just updated all right. I am ticker amc. I am in on the earnings call.

So when this happens, that was actually my biggest worry he's not getting in on this because i'm sure there's a lot of charter people listening uh. So when this all starts up, i will start like piping. The audio into this whole live stream. So we can all listen together, as of now amc trading at exactly nine dollars, very, very interested in to see how this all plays out.

As of now all right here we go, we can see the level two setting up here's some of the information that just came out in the past 45 minutes as it relates to amc. Actually, i do want to see this one. So what they're, basing all this on - and you can find this on amc's here i'll - make this a bit bigger. First quarter, 2021 kansas may 6th.

As of march 31st, 2020 amc was operating 585 domestic theaters with limited seating capacities between 15 and 60 percent, representing 99 of domestic theaters, all right, here's all the information. Once again, you can find this on amc's website under investor relations. This is how we already have those reports. This is very, very common for earnings calls to release the information and then they kind of go over this at the start of the call.

Then they offer some commentary and sometimes then they take questions from like analysts at the end or looking statement all right. So we can take a look at some of this. Oh, what are these steps right here, balance sheet? What are some of their most recent ones? May 2021 we received the remaining cash consideration of approximately 31.9 million for the completion of several remaining equity interests in our theaters in lithuania. Expense management in april 2021 launched an at the money equity program to sell up to 43 million shares of class, a common stock selling approximately 15.5 million shares and raising 153 million dollars, as of may 5th before commissions and fees.

That brings the total at the money. Equity raised from 2020 to 2021 to a billion dollars before commissions and fees. So right here this is very, very important. Um.

This is act. This webcast is getting crazy, uh, the music they're playing uh. This is pretty important, uh approximately 153. So thus far out of those 43, they sold just under half 15.5 million, actually um just over a third and that's as of may 5th as of yesterday.

So when people are talking about dilution and them selling well yeah right, there, 15.5 million shares did get dumped as of may 5th. This is kind of in april 2021, so from april to may 5th they did sell 15.5 million shares. That is kind of important in terms of um, really like some of the selling pressure we've seen 15.5 million right there. That did give them an extra 153 million, though call is starting now uh.

I am on the call i'm listening to it. It's just like that. Music in the background, unless i'm missing something, i think i'm good to go so this is actually very important. I'm like reading this with you live right here.

19.. Please take note of that. This is kind of what's happened previously march 2021, repaid entire outstanding balance um. So they paid the entire revolving credit facility.

That's good! Okay, so i would say: 19 is kind of uh the key key takeaway here - and this is just naturally older, older october 2020, 20, 20, 20. in january 2021, updated at the money program to sell additional 50 million shares of class a common stock and complete the Sale of all remaining shares authorized under december 2020. Two million share authorization raising all right, so that was 50 million all right holy, oh international, all right, okay, yeah, i would say 19 - is the key one. This is on page three.

If you're trying to read it yourself in terms of their balance sheet, cash of a march 31st was 813 million, excluding restricted 29 million during the first quarter. Repaid 335 million of debt under its revolving credit facilities, currently has liquidity available for approximately 1 billion, which includes cash and revolving credit facility. All right, i, like that revenue, 148 million net loss. That's a sizable net loss.

Actually, as we look ahead to the remainder of 2021 and beyond, amc remains focused on continued bold actions and executing our strategies, both operationally and financially, as we work to recover from the impact of rona. I just hope we get some like bombshell discussions about what they think of all the individual shareholders. Their commentary - oh right here - where does this actually start in a vocal, enthusiastic avenue shareholder base, comprised mostly of some 3 million individual stock holders? Page 7. total revenue, 148 operating cost 576 operating loss, cash and cash equivalents, 813 million dollars, total assets, 10 billion, so their assets actually have increased and their cash has definitely increased, but that's makes sense because they also just sold 15 point.

Whatever million shares net loss, it was a net loss, fully expected um way better than how it was looking in 2020, drastic improvement. We have any forward-looking statements. Okay, just so you know heading into this for amc. Today they did borrow an extra 2.42 million shares uh.

I don't think they hit the market, yet i think they were winning or basically the reaction to the headlines from this earnings call so be on the lookout for that tomorrow. There was a noticeable increase in these and then uh short interest. 23.32. I think that's another interesting thing to note, because ever since late january, this is the first time amc short interest has surpassed gmes earnings per share right here.

Earnings per share a loss of a dollar 42 and they were expecting a loss of a dollar 26.. So it was a loss, but we know amc is operating at a loss because the theaters are just like not open like how do we expect them to operate as a full-on business where, like they are basically fighting with their hands behind their back matt? You don't sound positive. No, i'm i'm waiting to see how this goes. I'm very very excited to see what's about to be said, because i think the commentary from this earnings call will prompt a lot of volatility for post market trading pre-market tomorrow and the action tomorrow.

Um, i'm just trying to set you up with all the numbers and how we are looking going into this. We have about a couple minutes till this starts. Uh amc reported a larger than expected fall in their first quarter, revenue on thursday hit by delays in theatrical releases and growing customer preferences for streaming uh. I um i don't like when they write things, because this isn't true godzilla vs kong did insanely well, even though it was also on hbo.

Max revenue fell to 148.3 million in the quarter ending on march 31st. Well, of course, it sound from the year earlier, like no duh anyways expected 153. According to this, so they were off by five million dollars, but um. No one is expecting over the past fiscal quarter of the past year, a movie chain to do like exceedingly well.

When people aren't allowed to go to the theaters, i don't think it's like that crazy of a thing not really much going on in the crypto markets. Interesting all right. We are a couple minutes out folks once again for those of you just hop popping in now. I i appreciate it.

Let's see what is going on all right: the numbers of importance for amc right now, twenty three point: three: two percent interest: they did have a net borrow today of two and a half million shares that puts us up back to 150 utilization was already a hundred Percent these shares borrowed are the definition of hard to borrow, i'm sure they paid a fee of probably more than 14, which is sky high the days to covers to start today off, based on the two-week trading average uh average trading volume was 3.73 days um. Just so that's how we started today off. Obviously, i will update you tomorrow to let you know how this is all going, but these 2.4 million shares were expensive ones to borrow, i'm gon na be interested in seeing if they hit the market. All right amc on the daily just so you know today's volume was 38 million and the average volume is also 38 million.

The daily volume for amc is in line with its average 10-day volume. Let's throw this up, let's throw this up, and you can see that right here, amc past week, down 11.76 past month, 8.63 past three months up 27 and from the start of 2021. Until now, it's up 325 pretty impressive and here's the volume volume today, 38.8 million. Actually surpassing the average volume over the past 10 days, and for those of you who are curious, amc is a four billion dollar company.

That's their market cap. Basically, the amount of shares multiplied by the cost per share. All right, we are very close to starting. Let me know: can you guys hear that music in the background outstanding share, is 450.28 million free float 93? That puts us at a free flow of roughly, like 418 million shares, starting greetings and welcome to the amc, entertainment first quarter, 2021 earnings confidence call during the presentation.

All participants will be in a listen only mode afterwards, we'll conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. Should you require operator assistance at any time, please press star zero. As a reminder, this call is being recorded today, thursday may 6 2021.

I'd now like to turn the call over to john merriweather vice president investor relations. Thank you good afternoon, i'd like to welcome everyone to amc's. First quarter 2021 earnings webcast with me this afternoon is adam aaron, our president chief executive officer and sean goodman, our chief financial officer. Before i turn the webcast over to adam.

Let me remind everyone that some of the comments made by management today during this webcast may contain forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations, numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those that might be expressed today. Many of these risks and uncertainties are discussed in our most recent public filings, including our most recently filed 10-q. Several of the factors that will determine the company's future results are beyond the ability of the company to control or predict in light of the uncertainties inherent in any forward-looking statements. Listeners are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these statements.

The company undertakes no obligation to revive or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information for future events on this webcast, we may reference measures such as adjusted ebitda, free cash flow, adjusted, free cash flow and constant currency, among others, which are non-gaap financial Measures for full reconciliation of our non-gaap measures to gaap results. Please see our earnings release posted in the investor relations section of our website. Earlier today, after our prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. This afternoon's webcast is being recorded and a replay will be available in the investor relations section of our website at amctheaters.com later today, with that i'll turn the call over to adam.

Thank you, john and good afternoon. Everyone thank you for joining us today. For the last year, i've started all our amc, earnings, webcasts and all our internal employee meetings. By expressing my sincere wishes that you and your families, along with your colleagues and friends, all have been and are now still in good health in these challenging coveted times today, is no different.

I s so do hope that you all are well, but with 250 million vaccination doses already in arm in the united states and more than 1.2 billion doses of the vaccine having been administered globally, and given that millions of more vaccine injections are taking place every single Day, both at home and abroad, this just may be the last time or close to the last time that we feel the need to do a preamble on these calls about your health. Isn't that a glorious thing to contemplate? I watch those vaccination statistics closely. All the time, because, let's say what it is, vaccination is our way out of all of this count me among the many who continue to marvel and by the way, that's little m marvel as in being amazed, not capital m marvel through which disney is going to Be releasing some extraordinary movies theatrically this year anyway. I truly marvel that every one of us talking or listening today on this webcast are now in our 14th or 15th month of living.

Through this real-life horror, show repeat of the spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919.. I adopted anyone. Anyone on this call really expected that ever in our lifetimes, but we have to deal with something this bad, which is so disruptive to what we think of as normal living, and to do that for so long before i leave the vaccination issue, though, which is so Critical to amc's recovery, for obvious reasons - i said a few months back - that albert borla, the ceo of pfizer, might just be the most important human in directing the comeback and the immediate future of the entire cinema industry. I meant that then, and i mean that still today, although he may have to share some credit with moderna and others in pharma, as well as with those in the trump administration who made a daring commitment to operation warp speed.

But today we also are so incredibly grateful to the new biden administration for getting the vaccine rolled out and in arm to so many americans so quickly. The u.s is conquering a mind-numbing logistical challenge, and the country doing so is a major reason why i am truly and absolutely optimistic, hopeful and confident in amc's recovery. Turning more directly to amc, as i look back on the odyssey of the past year for amc, there's just no other way to say it than this. It is simply and utterly astonishing.

What amc has accomplished since march of 2020 astonishing? It should take your breath away. It certainly did mine, and you know i say that not trying to have any sense of braggadocio. It's just the truth, and and even as we say that when we look back at what we've accomplished in such challenging times, we we're not wearing rose-colored glasses, we're not sugar coating our reality. We know that amc is losing money today, not making money today, and we know too, and are so very well aware that there is no enormous work ahead for us to steer amc through to a recovery.

But what gives us the confidence that recovery is? Finally, in our reach and that going forward, we will maneuver our way to get amc through these waters. Is this just look at what this management team already has pulled off? In these unparalleled times amc we were within months or weeks of running out of cash. Five different times between april of 2020 and january of 21., there are a lot of smart people on this call, and many of you were certain that amc would collapse. Why, to use a billiards metaphor because to succeed we would have had to run the table about 10 times in a row.

We would have had to execute flawlessly on so many different dimensions, but that's the thing here at amc. That's precisely what we did, my goodness! The strength and circumstances of amc are so much radically different and radically improved on may 6 than they were just months ago on november 6th or december december 6, or on january 6.. Six months ago, in this very quarterly earnings call forum, i was quoting winston churchill's famous. We will fight on the beaches speech to discuss the wartime mentality that we had at amc to successfully tackle our seemingly too many insurmountable challenges.

Well, we know, with the benefit of hindsight, that sir winston won his war and we have every confidence in looking ahead. That amc will win ours. We certainly are well on our way. Here is where we've ended up coming out of q1 and moving into q2 in calendar year 2021..

As of march 31 2021, we are strong. Almost all of our u.s theaters are now open and ever so importantly, our theaters in new york and los angeles are open. Where, in both markets, amc is the number one player and which together represent about a third of our total u.s business activity and our market share in the united states has soared increasing by about 25 compared to pre-pandemic levels. Amc's u.s market share was about 26 27.

A year back recently, we've enjoyed a share that is more around the 33 percent level we've taken share from those who stayed closed or those have gone bankrupt or those whose marketing prowess is not as imaginative as that of amc or from those whose theaters are not. As nice as ours, given our substantial reinvestment in them over the past many years and even as others finally reopen, we believe we will permanently keep some, not all, but some of that increased market share that we've been capturing of late. Now that more and more people are discovering and experiencing amc for themselves, firsthand our middle eastern theaters too, are all open. Our theaters in spain and portugal are open and much more of our european estate, most notably in the united kingdom, comes back up in a big way.

Just two weeks from now and crucially, big new titles are starting to come out too. As you know, and people are coming to our theaters again, our business for the opening of godzilla versus khan was five times that of the average first quarter. Attendance. The mortal kombat demon slayer weekend two weeks ago was our biggest attended weekend at amc since march of 2020, 13 months ago, watch tv now, as i did last night, you'll see trailer after trailer before your eyes, starting to create the hype for all the big movies.

Being released to theaters in may june july, and beyond and critically important too critically important for amc at the end of q1, amc had more than one billion dollars of immediately available liquidity. That is the highest quarter and liquidity that amc has ever had in our entire 101 year history in our new equity raise announced. Just last week, we had already brought in another 153 million dollars at an average share price of 9.85 per share. As of yesterday, in just five trading days, that number is now 172 million dollars in the door for amc as the market closed today, this takes our total amount raised to approximately 2.9 billion dollars and fresh equity and debt capital in over the last year, including the Conversion of 600 million dollars of convertible notes into equity at a price of 13.51 cents per share, and way to hear this literally tomorrow, friday may 7th.

We will cross the two billion dollar mark of cash, raise through equity or debt about four fifths of that being equity rather than debt. Since december 14, 2020 only five months ago, two billion dollars in the door boosting our liquidity since december 14th, and that's in addition to all that we did from a capital perspective between april and november of 2020, which was about another two billion dollars. In addition, as spelled out in more detail in our press release today, taking step after steps, this was the amc to-do list over the past year, closing theaters and reopening them, closing them again and reopening them again gut wrestling having to furlough our entire us workforce and Then, bringing our workforce back and dealing with all the extremely important and sensitive issues associated with all that designing our amc, safe and clean protocols with clorox and harvard school of public health faculty at our side, joined at the hip with us to prove that we could Reopen responsibly, navigating with studios both with carrot and stick in defending theatrical exhibition and defending amc, but also understanding and accommodating their desire to creatively address windows and simultaneously beef up their streaming platforms, prepare for hyper, aggressive and innovative marketing activity. When new major titles come to our theater in quantity, uh as they are starting to do now, professionally handle a change of control from wanda, who was a terrific partner for us for many years and who remains still our single largest shareholder to a shareholder base, primarily Individual shareholders about 3 million strong, most of whom live in north america and europe and, above all else, build up liquidity, bolster cash, cut spending, defer obligations, renegotiate theater leases from our landlord community, who, i might tangentially add heroically, really had our back in 2020 and to Whom we are ever so grateful now and will be perpetually grateful to as we return to our former self, but the list continues.

We had to raise equity in debt all the while deleveraging to the tune of some 1 billion 255 million dollars in debt. That was either forgiven by our lenders or converted instead to equity. Why am i sharing all of that with you now today? Well, some of it's new information for many of you and some of it you already know, but in a simple summary, here's the point that i've been trying to make when you look at it all as one interwoven tapestry our dedicated, experienced amc management, team and employees Coupled with the biggest and best collection of theater assets in our industry, both in the us and globally had enormous challenges to deal with in 2020, and we performed beyond all expectations over the past year. Of course, it's clear that challenges are new are still out there of plenty for amc to deal with a recovery in the movie.

Theater industry has not yet started it's just about to start. You can feel it. You can taste it. You can see it just over.

The horizon, but it hasn't actually started yet and literally no one knows what the pace fast or slow of that recovery will be. It's clear to us that there'll be much more flawless execution needed at ims at amc and by amc to energize this recovery and to benefit from this recovery, but think about all of this: the passion, the energy, the drive, the creativity, the work ethic, the smarts and The sheer will that amc displayed in 2020 to make it through this pandemic. That is precisely what we're going to display again at amc in 2021 and again in 2022, no resting on recent laurels here: no taking a year sabbatical, no coasting no mailing it in. We all know this is a.

What have you done for me lately world and we will give it our all to make make people as impressed with amc's accomplishments this year in 2021 and next year in 2022, as they were, with the strides amc made in 2020. In november of 1942, two and a half years before world war ii ended in europe. My favorite winston churchill said in yet another of his famous speeches quote now. This is not the end, it's not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

It took him another two and a half years, but sir winston won his titanic fight. Indeed, it's going to take us a while too, but hear me now and write it down and hold us to it, as you think about covet its aftermath and the structural changes in our industry. That may come our way. I believe that amc will win our war too.

I'm now going to turn the call over to sean to update you on where we are financially and then we're going to head pretty quickly after that, the q, a sean thanks, adam and thank you to everyone for joining us this afternoon, and i also do hope That you and your families have been keeping safe and well during this time. The the covert 19 crisis has continued to severely impact our business during the first quarter. We ended the quarter with nearly 99 of our us circuit open, but we also contended with a combination of significant capacity limitations, reduced operating hours of our own accord to decrease costs. The sizable number of our theaters that have closed for much of the quarter.

The continued closure of the vast majority of our international theatres and all of this, combined with a limited number of new title releases. So not surprisingly, the soil significantly impacted our attendance levels for the quarter. The very low attendance levels ultimately make this quarter's financial results of somewhat limited relevance. The data is, of course, for all to see in our press release, so i'm really not going to dig into it in much detail on this core i'll focus.

My comments with you. This afternoon, instead on our prospects looking ahead, but before i do say that i do want to mention two first quarter: statistics that are particularly encouraging compared to the first quarter of 2019, before the onset of covert our domestic average ticket prices were up more than 11 Percent and our domestic food and beverage revenue per patron in our very high margin, food and beverage business was up more than 45 percent. Clearly guests returning to our theaters are eager to participate in the full, theatrical experience, including enjoyment of our innovative and tasty concession offerings. Key performance indicators that drove these two improved metrics for the quarter benefited from a higher proportion of evening and weekend shows strategic ticket and food and beverage pricing adjustments.

The success of our very popular private theatre, rental program and increased usage of our mobile amc app for both ticket and food and beverage purchases. We use the time period of this pandemic to roll out mobile food and beverage ordering on our smartphone app at basically. All of our usaf and amc classic theaters, our industry-leading smartphone app now makes it ever so easy to convenient the order, food and beverage items at the same time as purchasing tickets, with the food and beverage items fully prepared and waiting for our guests either to collect. When they arrive at our theaters or delivered to their seats, similarly, during the height of the pandemic, we dramatically upgraded our mobile i.t platforms for our uk guests, the uk, being our second largest country territory.

Now, moving on from the quarters results, let's talk more broadly about amc's, overall liquidity, financial process, financial position and prospects ahead. In our press release issued earlier today, we provided a comprehensive list of the decisive actions that we took over the last 13 months to improve our liquidity position for success in 2021 and beyond. These actions included raising 2.95 billion dollars of capital, which includes the conversion of 600 million dollars of convertible debt to equity. That's a price of 13.51 per share, securing more than 1.2 billion dollars of creditor and landlord concessions obtaining more than 150 million dollars of assistance from european governments and generating 80 million dollars from strategic asset sales.

So, as of march 31st, we had 813 million dollars of cash, 29 million dollars of restricted cash and approximately 212 million dollars available under our revolving credit facility. Given that we paid down our revolver balance during the first quarter. This gives us total liquidity. On march 31st, 2021 of 1.025 billion dollars, as adam said earlier, this is the highest amount of quarter and liquidity that amc has ever had in our 101 year history.

The monthly cash burn in q1 came out at approximately 120 million dollars per month. Note that this is after normalizing for the impact of capital quarter. Of course, it goes without saying that, with all the debt and equity capital that we raised during the quarter, our cash position greatly increased during the quarter not decreased. As previously announced.

Last week we launched an at the market or atm program to issue up to 43 million shares to further enhance the financial strength and strategic flexibility of amc during what continue to be challenging times. As of the close of the market. Today, in just six trading days, we've sold approximately 17.5 million shares for gross price gross proceeds of approximately 172 million dollars and an average price of 9.77 per share. Needless to say, from a liquidity perspective, it has been a good week for amc.

At the end of the first quarter, we had deferred rent obligations of approximately 470 million dollars. This is up from 450 million dollars at the end of q4, 2020. repayment terms continue to be an average of 27 months and although a number of agreements have repayment periods that extend through the remaining lease term, which in some cases is well in excess of 10 Years a reminder that the rent expense shown on the face of the income statement represents our rent obligation for the quarter as opposed to cash rent paid for the first quarter. Actual cash rent paid was approximately 40 million dollars less than what is shown on the face of the income statement.

While future rent payments will continue to depend on ongoing discussions with our landlords, we anticipate that our quarterly cash rent payments during the remainder of 2021 will be meaningfully higher than q1's levels, and also that the cash rent in the second half of 2021 will be higher Than the income statement rent both because attendance levels are expected to increase and we will also be repaying some rent deferred from prior periods, shifting to capital expenditures. As previously stated, we have continued to limit capital expenditures to minimum maintenance levels really eliminating all but essential. And previously committed capex during the first quarter, our catholic spend was only 8.2 million dollars net of landlord contributions. This is 67.4 million dollars lower than the same quarter a year ago.

As a reminder, net capex for the whole of 2021 is expected to be approximately 100 million dollars and going forward. Our capex will ratchet up or down based on the speed of our recovery, and we expect 2022 capex to be between 100 and 150 million dollars. These numbers are orders of magnitude lower than the afc capex programs of two three and four years ago, overall, we're in a solid financial position to continue to withstand covert related disruptions to our business and to capitalize on their expected return to more normal attendance levels. Later.

In the year, at the same time, we believe that it is important to continue to take strategic actions to further strengthen our balance sheet and enhance our liquidity profile so as to optimally position ourselves for long-term sustainable success in the post-covert world. With that i'll now pass the call back over to adam. Thank thanks sean two very quick points, but important points before we open it up to your questions. First, on amc's continuing liquidity.

Let's assume that our current 43 million share at the market equity rates continues to go well, let's also assume that the domestic box office as a proxy for the industry's overall health has some semblance of a recovery starting in the second half of 2021.. How do we define some semblance of recovery, a domestic box office, meaning the box office for the u.s and canada hitting 5 billion or more in 2021, and a domestic box office of 8 billion or more in 2022? How reasonable is an 8 billion dollar placeholder for 2022.? We all have our opinions, some more informed than others, but literally no one knows for sure. After all, 2020 was a disaster, and there are a myriad of predictions as to how quickly a recovery in movie, theater ticket sales will occur, still reflect on this absent a global pandemic. The domestic box office has exceeded eight billion dollars every year between 2001 and 2019 19 years in a row, it has exceeded nine billion dollars every year.

Between 2006 and 2019 14 years in a row, it has exceeded 10 billion dollars every year between 2009 and 2019 11 years in a row and has exceeded 11 billion dollars every year between 2015 and 2019 five years in a row and finally also assume that everything Else more or less works out along the lines of our current expectations. In that scenario, when looking at our liquidity, we can say now that amc would have will have materially extended our liquidity runway all the way through the end of 2022, and given our sizeable market share, a domestic box office in 2021 above 5 billion or domestic box Office in 2022, above 8 billion dollars, would put a lot of extra money into amc's coffers. Second point: amc now has an army of passionate interested individual shareholders, some 3 million strong, the exact number, was 3.2 million shareholders on march 11th. The last time we got an investor count, they owned more than four-fifths of our then 450 million outstanding shares.

As of that march 11th date. Since then, a lot of amc shares have changed hands, so we actually delayed our annual meeting of shareholders to july 29th. With a new record date of june 2 and we'll get an updated count of shares outstanding, as of that june 2, we'll also get the number of shareholders and their contact information in early june. We did all this in part so that we could give our current investors the opportunity to make their important voices hurt, but we already know this well before june 2..

These individual investors likely hold a majority of our shares. They own amc, we work for them. I work for them, so by definition, their interests and passions are important. Amc, their interests and passions are important to me.

Many of you remember the extraordinary and heartwarming 1988 movie gorillas in the mist nominated for five oscars starring sigourney weaver gorillas in the midst showcased, the extraordinary life story of american primatologist, diane fosse, who dedicated her life to saving the endangered guerrilla species, especially where they commonly Reside in central africa, mostly in rwanda and the democratic republic of congo, with all that support over decades, the guerrilla population quintupled more than quintupled actually, but even so, there are still fewer than 1100 gorillas alive today in this part of africa, saving these beautiful creatures is A noble goal: many of our investors too, have embraced diane fosse's cause and have raised substantial monies for it. Each year amc raises third-party money from our suppliers and others such that our off-balance sheet charitable foundation amc cares, can provide financial support to worthy causes. I am pleased to announce today that amc cares will make a 50 000 cash donation to the diane fosse guerrilla fund, and that i also am pleased to announce today that out of my pocket personally, i will match that amc. Cares.

Donation dollar for dollar bring the total contribution from amc cares and from me up to a hundred thousand dollars. Amc is going to become one of only seven platinum sponsors of the diane fosse guerrilla fund, the highest tier of their sponsorships, and i will join its digit society, its highest tier of personal donors, the digit society, by the way, harold's digit digit, was diane. Fossey's favorite gorilla when she was alive above and beyond those cash donations. We already have started discussing with the fosse fund other ways that amc can be of help within the boundaries, of course, of the law, integrity and ethics, as well as the exercise of wise judgment on behalf of all stakeholding constituencies.

In the free market capitalist system, the shareholder is king, as i said before, the interests of our shareholders become our interests. The passions of our shareholders become our passions too, with that operator we're ready to go to q a wow, certainly - and thank you very much if you would like to register a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge that request. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the one followed by the three first question comes from eric wolf with b riley.

Your line is open. Thank you all right. Good afternoon, uh, adam and shawn appreciate taking the call for a question um a couple questions. I guess one um, maybe, as the markets start to reopen a question on your on your two largest state.

How are you interpreting the new social distancing capacity rules in in new york city? What do you actually mean for capacity limits near term and then on california? Do you plan on going to 100 uh capacity when allowed to in in mid-june, or are there some local restrictions that that may not allow that so eric uh? Whatever the capacity limitations are, they are a lot higher than zero percent, which is where it was like? Eight weeks ago and 25, where it's been recently and 50 percent in new york, especially the the capacity we expect, that the capacity limit will be removed. But the enforcement of a six-foot social distancing rule will continue to be enforced by governmental authorities, which, of course, we will respect and we've already made the decision, as some of you know, to continue a mandatory math policy uh deep into the summer. At the very least, maybe beyond that, as we learn more about not the pace of our recovery but the pace of the nation's recovery from the spread of the coven 19 vaccine, so um, i i think clearly capacity limitations are going up. Ira uh, that's true in new york, that's true! In l.a, we intend to be very cautious.

I am immensely proud of how much effort amc put into amc, safe and clean. We opened our theaters back in august and we still have not heard of one documented case of coven 19 being transmitted guest, a guest at our theaters um. That's so, and - and that's that's such a tribute to our people at our theaters who work so hard to operate their theaters cleanly uh operate their their theaters responsibly operate their theater safely. With with this commitment to safety at extraordinary expense, i might add that amc has shown over since last august protocols that we started working on last may we're not the no we're not about to blow it now by um, taking unnecessary risks.

So um we'll call the science very carefully we're listening to our harvard faculty very carefully uh. It's interesting that uh, the people we've been working with at the school of public health, we're so far ahead of the rest of the country that airborne transmission was the real thing to worry about here, rather than phone. My touch and you'll recall back last spring. The whole world was wearing about what you touched and in fact we were out buying uh thousands of merv 13 uh air filters for our hvac systems, because we were way up front that, in addition to cleaning and sanitizing and wipes and gels and masks and social Distancing boy, we needed high-tech solutions too to make sure that the transmission of the virus through the air was greatly minimized at amc.

So you know looking ahead, i'm sure the capacity limits are going to rise all across the country. We all know what president biden has said: 4th of july is going to be a great weekend in the united states. He says we know that there were 250 million injections in arm in the united states 48 hours ago. Uh.

You know there are more than that. Today and there'll be a lot more than that by the end of may and by the end of june uh, and all this bodes well for uh taking capacity levels up, but we're only going to do it safely. We think ours our associates deserve it and our customers deserve it. The other thing to remember, in our case, we we have the opportunity to be so forgiving on capacity limitations, because, as you've heard me say before we only sold so we sell more movie tickets than anybody in the world and we only sold 17 percent of our Available seats in 2019., we have so many show times where these capacity limitations uh don't cost us uh a thing uh.

So that's how it answers your question. We're upbeat capacity limits are going to rise, uh uh in jurisdiction after jurisdiction month to month as vaccinations rise. As the infection spread diminishes, thank you. Maybe it's one more.

If i may, i guess, can you talk about what you're seeing in the current labor market and you know in hiring you know hourly employees to come to come back to the theater? Are you needing to push up wage rates with all of your track workers and then kind of taking it from the reverse? You know obviously you're trying to come out of this um pandemic in in a more efficient manner. Um you eventually, you know, do you do you have the same number of hourly workers on hand kind of when things ran back up as you did in 19, or will the number actually be lower? So let's talk about how difficult it is or is not to hire and then i'll talk about the our staffing levels in the next several weeks, we're going to be hiring between 5 000 and 10 000 people to beef up our staffing levels as we approach the Summer season, when we see a lot of new movies being released and a lot more people coming to our theaters, fortunately for us, amc has always been a very happy place to work. Morale at our theaters has always been high. Our theater general managers just devote so much effort to the care and uh attention they direct at what we call our film crew at our theaters uh, and so, if anybody's gon na get employees to come back, i believe it will be us uh.

We have seen some wage pressure by other employers in some locales, but we ourselves have not felt much wage pressure yet uh how that will change over the next six eight months uh. You know we'll all learn together, but i know that as captain of the ship, i'm relaxed about hiring talented people to work at our theaters and our operations department is nervous as all getup about it. And that's because i get to tell them to hire the people and they got to go figure out how to do it, but they've done it really well for a lot of years, i think they're going to get it done again. Here's a little fact that you may not know about companies like ours who tend to pay starting job wages.

You know not necessarily minimum wage some cases, minimum wage other pace other times higher than minimum wage, but still these are first jobs for a lot of a lot of young people in the country. Um, the turnover in that workforce the what i might call the starting wage workforce - it's like it turned. I don't mean just for amc, i'm talking about across the country. It turns over every four to six months and while our theater managers might stay with us for 30 years, and while our supervisors might stay with us for 20 years and our hourly managers might stay with us for 20 years, a lot of our film crew cashiers Ticket takers, popcorn poppers they're with us for six fun months.

They had a great, they had a great uh work experience and they move on so actually pre pandemic. Amc was hiring about 50 000 people a year every single year to staff up our theaters. So we've got a lot of practice at it. We know how to do it, i'm confident we'll staff as needed, and that we'll be able to do it without massive wage pressure where the wage pressure will come in is as more and more laws are passed.

Raising the minimum wage, because not only will it raise the minimum wage, it will raise wages that are close to minimum wage, but that's a problem for 2022 or 2023 more than it's a problem for june of 2021. As for staffing levels, we worked really hard during this horrible pandemic to get more efficient than we've ever been before, and we skinny down our overhead a lot in our corporate headquarters in leawood kansas. Our management staffing is about a third less than it was two years ago, and the company is the same size and in our theater manager counts. The way we manage our theaters general managers - senior managers - supervisors, hourly managers - we're also down roughly a third in terms of supervisory workforce, but i don't expect that we'll cut line staffing very much now.

We certainly have, since last march, when we shut all our theaters and when we reopened our theaters, we were really tight on reducing operating hours and reducing days that our theaters were open. So, while some stake circuits stayed closed, amc made the decision that all of our theaters would open when governments allowed them to, but not necessarily open, seven days a week, 14 hours a day, some of our theaters are open. Seven days a week, some of our theaters were open five days a week. Some of our theaters were open three days a week for months and months, even though we were open, we only had one or two show times a day at our theaters, when historically, we would have had four or five show times a day, so we were able To ratchet down staffing levels commensurate with the much lower demand levels and much lower attendance levels that we are experiencing here before, but we do expect that that's about to change big new movies are coming out.

Thank you universal for f9. Thank you disney for black widow. Thank you warner for the movies they're bringing to our theaters and to paramount and sony and lionsgate and all the studios. We work with a lot of new movies are coming.

The number of guests coming to our theaters should geometrically increase and we will have to raise our staffing levels to serve them well, but of course, as we raise our costs, we're also raising our revenues because those people will be paying customers. I especially like seeing the paying customers just look at the food and beverage revenue per patron that we put on the board in the first quarter. The numbers continue to be historically high uh our food and beverage business is a high margin business and these people having been deprived of their amc perfectly popcorn, accompanied by a nice 54-ounce cup of coca-cola they're, heading to the concession stands and they are getting the whole Amc experience, and so we do need to make sure that we staff up so that we can let them buy. These can food and beverage items from us with the high margins they bring in perfect, very helpful.

Thank you adam. Thank you eric and our next question comes from megan durkin with credit suisse. Your line is open, hi, guys, um adam. I wanted to ask about the new shareholder base quickly, um.

So how do you see this going? I mean if management thinks that increasing the share authorization is the best move for the company, but the new shareholders. Don't then what is the way forward from there um and then for sean, a quick one? Are you still expecting to cross over and turn cash flow? Positive in 4q21, that's it for me! Thank you, megan i'll, take the first one if management thinks something and the owners of our business think something else in the free market system. Guess who wins? Guess who always wins the owners of the business, because the managements work for the owners now um? We can try to explain and we can try to persuade and we can also listen uh and we can adjust our strategies. There are a lot of ways to scan a cat and i'm quite optimistic about the new shareholder base of amc.

Just go on twitter. Just go on reddit just go on youtube, read what these people write, they love amc. This is, and these are not people who are just going to be investors in amc. These are going to be customers of amc who come to our theaters and enjoy watching movies at our theaters as paying guests so um.

I love the idea that we have a compassionate, committed, enthusiastic shelter base and i'm sure that, as we work together, management and ownership, uh we'll come to the right answer. Look at what we've achieved as i've. You know the whole point of my prepared remarks. Look at what we've achieved in the last year, we're going to achieve good things the next year and the year after that too.

The the only thing that'll be different, though, is before when i wanted to talk to the company's ownership i could fly to beijing and i could sit down with three or four people and they had 75 of the votes or i could talk to some of you. Analysts who were in frequent contact with people who also had huge percentage votes, uh uh of our company's shareholding base. We go on non-deal road shows with you all and meet this institutional investor or that institutional investor and make our case and make our pitch. Well.

It's gon na be a little different now because i don't have five people in one office. I don't have 15 securities analysts who talk to all these institutions. We've got 3.2, i would say we have. As on march 11, we had 3.2 million people who we're going to have to talk to to explain what the company's up to what the company's doing what the company wants to do.

Why we want to do it, how it impacts them and do they agree with it and so you're going to see a lot more outreach to literally millions of investors in our company and it's going to be quite public. I've started tweeting again back when i ran the philadelphia 76ers. I was tweeting 15 times a day and i don't think i've tweeted 15 times a year in the last five years at amc, but i started tweeting again uh and we are communicating uh with our shareholder base. Uh, some of you saw may have seen a youtube interview that i did try getting four minutes on cnbc, that's pretty hard.

Well, we got 90 minutes on youtube and it had 250 000 views and you know on youtube. They get to grade it. They give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and the last time i looked over, 20 000 people took the time to rate it. This 90-minute interview and 99.4 percent of them gave us a thumbs up.

So it's going to change the way we communicate and it's going to change who we communicate to, but i'm very confident that the outcome will have a happy ending john megan. So to your question on the uh cash flow forecast for 2021 um. What i'll say is, firstly, that our overall forecast for 2021 remains the same as it was when we last spoke on the previous earnings call, there's an assumption behind that. The assumption is that the domestic box office is around five billion dollars level and international is somewhere similar.

The timing of the cash flow is obviously going to be very dependent on the timing of specific form leases. What we see based on the timing now the predictions uh for the remainder of this year, is that a q2 cash flow will be pretty similar q. The second half of the year overall will be significantly better than the first half of the year, but you're going to see q3 is going to be better than q2. Quite a lot better than q2 and q4 is going to be better than q3.

But exactly you know whether or not we'll be breaking q4 really does depend on um how how the final form slate uh ends up at the end of the day. Here: okay, thanks guys sure, and all we have time for one last question which will come from chad bainen with macquarie. Your line is open, hey. This is aaron on for chad, um yeah.

You guys had some really strong ticket and concession pricing. Obviously, in the quarter, can you share how much of that strength was driven by the strategic pricing adjustments you mentioned, and do you think this is sustainable going forward when you know demand starts returning full and other entertainment options open up so i'll? Let sean give you the specific as to what part of this high food and beverage spent per patron was was price rather than quantity, but i will tell you that the lion's share of this massive search in food and beverage purchasing is that more people are going To the concession stand and they're buying more things when they get there um, i remember being kind of astonished when i joined amc five years ago, that almost a third of our of our entire clientele went to a theater watch the movie and didn't get anything never Bought any food and beverage items um, and so one of the ways to increase and and of course but but our food and beverage revenues are divided by our whole. Our total patron count. So the the that which is being bought by the people who buy is being blended with the nothing that was bought by a third of our clientele.

Well, you know people have been so deprived of something that they love people love going to the movies. All the talk about streaming that we hear people love going to theaters. It happened a billion times in the united states in 2019 and um uh. What we're seeing now is how they've been deprived of enjoying movies on the big screen and going back to theaters people want the whole enchilada.

They want the whole thing they want popcorn, they want to drink, they want candy, they want hot dogs, they want nachos everything that we have all and some of our more imaginative food and beverage items they want. Those too uh flatbread pizzas. Give me give me, give me another, and so what we're seeing is more people are going to concession stand and then, when they get there they're you know if, in the old days they bought two items today, they're buying three. So i think that trend is going to continue for quite some time because when you think of this recovery, this rolling recovery that we're imagining for our industry and for our company that really starts kicking in memorial day weekend and runs in the second half of 2022.

A lot of people are going to be coming back to the theaters for the first time again in a year when they show up in july or when they show up in august uh, even though some people in our theaters will have been coming every month since February or march um, and so i think this would be a lot of this splurging going on, and so i would. I would expect that we would see elevated food and beverage spending levels for quite some time. Will it be at this high level and will it stay at this high level forever we're all going to find out together? No one's got a perfect crystal ball to understand what the future will bring, but we're pretty optimistic that at least as the recovery begins. Uh, food and beverage spending will be higher than what we've seen in more routine times as as for pricing, sean yeah, and i don't explain the drivers of the food and beverage statistic very well there.

As to pricing, that was the least significant impact. The much more significant impacts were, as adam said, people were buying in these transactions and the number of guests going to the concession and actually um buying uh products as well. So the the price adjustment was was very, very small in the total uh drivers there less than 10 on the total increase uh. Ladies and gentlemen, we we thank you all for joining us.

Today. It's been a wild ride and that wild ride is going to continue, but we are very much hopeful that recovery is right around the corner. Thank you for thank you for being with us today and all that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you very much for your participation nsa.

Please disconnect all right all right, all right, all right and disconnected from that all right, so we do need to go over some of those important notes. I want to touch on some things that i thought were noteworthy.