“Silverback” has spoken, and he wants to issue more stock.
AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron sat down Thursday night with Trey Collins, the owner of the Trey’s Trades channel on YouTube, to answer questions from the company’s largest pool of investors.
The nearly hour-long interview offered Aron unrestricted access to Collins’ more than 280,000 subscribers, many of whom are owners of AMC’s stock. While Collins used this as a chance to ask Aron to clarify the company’s dealings with Mudrick Capital, its outstanding share count and the short sellers who are betting against AMC, Aron used the platform to try and persuade shareholders that allowing the company to issue millions of new shares was in the best interest of AMC’s future.
“If you arm us with the tool — meaning stock as the tool — to go find value-creating opportunities for AMC shareholders, we can do that,” Aron said. “If we are not armed with this tool, then you’re tying our hands behind our back and you’ll make it just that much harder for us to land some of these attractive opportunities that could benefit us all.”
Aron’s latest push to convince investors to allow AMC to issue more stock comes just months after it failed to gain shareholder support to add 500 million shares.
AMC executives postponed its shareholder meeting until late July from May in an effort to allow more of its newer shareholders — who call themselves apes and have annointed Aron as their silverback — to attend the meeting. Meanwhile, it’s been revamping its strategy. Its newest proposal, which it unveiled Thursday, asks shareholders to allow AMC to issue up to 25 million more shares. If approved, the company would not be allowed to sell any of that stock until 2022.
Aron reiterated that the company is looking at a number of acquisition opportunities, including buying up several ArcLight and Pacific theater locations that were shuttered during the pandemic, and would use funds raised through stock sales to do so.
