AMC Entertainment Mixes Popcorn, Metals in Mining Bet

(Bloomberg) — AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the world’s largest movie-theater chain and a past darling of meme-stock investors, said it’s buying 22% of a gold and silver mining company in Nevada.

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The cinema giant is investing in Hycroft Mining Holding Corp. alongside Eric Sprott, a gold and silver investor, AMC said in a statement Tuesday. The parties’ equal stakes total $56 million, “which will help Hycroft considerably lengthen its financial runway,” AMC said.

Hycroft’s 71,000-acre mine in northern Nevada has 15 million ounces of gold deposits and 600 million ounces of silver, AMC said, pointing to third-party studies. The mining company reported $31.7 million in revenue for the third quarter of 2021.

Hycroft shares surged 83% to $2.54 in premarket trading at 7:47 a.m. in New York. AMC rose 1.3% to $13.74.

AMC Chief Executive Officer Adam Aron, known for his brash pronouncements as his company’s shares ran up 1,183% last year in volatile trading, cited the box-office success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “The Batman” as boosting AMC’s confidence in its recovery from pandemic-era struggles.

“Our strategic investment being announced today is the result of our having identified a company in an unrelated industry that appears to be just like AMC of a year ago,” Aron said in the statement. “It, too, has rock-solid assets, but for a variety of reasons, it has been facing a severe and immediate liquidity issue. We are confident that our involvement can greatly help it to surmount its challenges — to its benefit, and to ours.”

In addition to buying its 22% stake, AMC said it has received an additional 23.4 million warrants in Hycroft at $1.07 a share.

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(Corrects Hycroft revenue in third paragraph.)