Cineworld CEO to resign ahead of chain expansion
Cineworld CEO Stephen Wiener is to move on from the chain on 31 March next year, after 18 years leading the company.
The cinema chain operates 79 sites, and in October announced that while it would be closing or selling two recently acquired Picturehouse cinemas, it would be opening "up to and possibly 25 new cinemas" up until 2017.
Its interim results saw revenues grow by 17.7 per cent in the nine months to September, which Nick Batram of Peel Hunt said was a "reassuring period" against a backdrop of a disappointing third quarter for the sector.
Reflecting on his success at the head of the firm, Wiener said:
In 1995 my wife Jenny and I wrote a business plan to start a cinema company. We expected over a five year period to open five-seven multiplex cinemas and sell it on to one of the big operators.
Today, in 2013, Cineworld is the number one cinema chain in the UK and has been for more than three years. This was achieved by a lot of hard work by an executive team that is the best I have ever worked with in my 44 years in the industry.