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Back of Napkin

AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. AMC

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The bet you're really making is that Americans keep going out to the movies, and that AMC, the biggest theater chain in the country, sells them enough tickets and popcorn to stay alive. Underneath that, you're betting the packed 2026 and 2027 film schedule fills seats fast enough to carry the roughly $7 billion AMC owes, net of cash, in debt and leases without printing a flood of new shares. Right now it looks better underneath: the theaters earned $238 million in the spring quarter, more than double a year earlier, though the company still lost money after the interest bill. You pay about 22 times a rough measure of cash profit, near the most the stock has cost in a dozen years and well above rival chains at about 12.7 times.

Key data

Price$2.65
52-week range$0.93 – $3.18
Price / sales (TTM)0.45x
EV / EBITDA (TTM)21.8x

AMC · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$-3$11$25$39$53 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jul '25Feb '26Sep '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

AMC runs the largest cinema circuit in the US plus a big European one, and it makes money three ways, where the mix matters more than the total. Admissions, $863 million last quarter, is the top line but the thin one, because studios take roughly half of every ticket back as film-exhibition cost ($440 million against that $863 million). Food and beverage, $576 million, is where the profit lives: popcorn and soda carry gross margins above 80%, and getting each guest to spend more at the counter is the one lever management actually controls. The third slice, other theatre ($157 million), is screen advertising and the loyalty program. The moat is thin, the best seats in the best locations and a scaled loyalty base, not a structural lock. Attendance is the master variable, and attendance is set by Hollywood's release calendar, which AMC does not control.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05Closing thoughts
  6. 06Methodology

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