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Carmike Cinemas: Companies
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Carmike Cinemas is a movie theatre corporation headquartered in Columbus, Georgia in the United States of America. It currently operates 311 theaters in 37 states, making it the fourth largest theatre company in the United States.
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By the middle of 1993, Carmike had established a presence in 23 states in the South, Southwest, and Midwest. The company's 388 theaters contained a total of 1,560 screens. Again in 1994, Carmike picked up screens from other chains, built theaters of its own, and had a record year in just about every category. During 1994 the company acquired 178 screens from Cinema World, bought another 48 screens from General Cinema, and built five new complexes holding 43 screens. Carmike ... added 15 new screens to complexes already in operation. Part of the financing for all of this growth came from a public offering of $58 million worth of newly issued common stock, after which the Patricks still held the majority of voting interest in the company.
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Carmike brought another existing chain, the 116-screen Consolidated Theaters, Inc., into the fold in 1989, while adding another 35 screens of its own construction. Patrick ... took his first vacation since launching the company. The company continued to prosper, with revenues approaching the $100 million mark, by bringing Hollywood's biggest, most mainstream movies into the sleepy towns of Middle America. Because it maintained monopoly or near-monopoly positions in most of its markets, Carmike was able to negotiate better rates from movie distributors than could many of its competitors. Patrick was in a position, according to the Wall Street Journal's Anita Sharpe, to tell Hollywood, 'Either you play Carmike Cinemas or Blockbuster Video.' The company found savings in other areas as well. Its small town costs for constructing new theaters ran less than half of what such projects cost in prime suburban locations.
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Carmike's swift rise to prominence among movie exhibitors was the work of the Patrick family, a clan with a history in the theater business. Company Chairman Carl Patrick, Sr., was an executive with Martin Theaters, a Columbus, Georgia-based chain owned by another family. In 1969 Martin was purchased by Atlanta tycoon J.B. Fuqua, and it became part of Fuqua Industries. Although Patrick initially wanted his two sons, Michael and Carl, Jr., to stay away from the movie theater industry, Michael had other ideas.
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[D]uring 1998, Carmike competitors Regal Cinemas and Act III merged to create the largest theater chain in the United States, while Loews Cineplex Entertainment's merger with Cineplex Odeon pushed it into the number two slot. Near the end of the year, Carmike received an infusion of capital from Goldman Sachs, which invested $55 million to buy 16 percent of the company. It ... was borrowing heavily from lenders, money that would be used to build the more than 300 additional screens that were planned for 1999.
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Carmike theaters are largely positioned in rural or suburban areas. Most of its older theaters are six or eight auditoriums deep. Carmike sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2000 after failing to make $9 million in interest payments. The company was about $650 million in debt. Since declaring bankruptcy, many theaters in dead markets were closed down, and some were renovated or relocated in areas with desirable market potential. Most of these newer theaters are 10 screens or larger.
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