The Association of Cinema Owners (AVK) warned the head of the Presidential Administration Anton Vaino about the possible suspension of the cinemas of Alexander Mamut’s Cinema Park cinema network. Vedomosti writes about this.

The reason is that the Bank “Trust” wrote off 450 million rubles from the accounts of the cinema network “Cinema Park” and “Formula Kino” to repay the debt. This happened on January 11-13, after the end of the so-called bankruptcy moratorium, introduced at the peak of the pandemic. Money is the proceeds of movie theaters from New Year’s shows. The bank also filed a lawsuit against Mamut for 1 billion rubles.

Since the Cinema Park group of companies has no funds for operating expenses, bankruptcy is an inevitable scenario for the development of events, – AVK Chairman Oleg Berezin.

According to Berezin, the bankruptcy of the cinema network “does not meet the goals that the state, represented by the president, has identified as priorities during this difficult economic period.”

The total debt of Mamut’s companies to Trust is about 23 billion rubles, 19 billion of which falls on the liabilities of A&NN Investments Limited and JSC Cinema Park. This debt has not been serviced since March 2020, the Trust said. At the same time, the bank made several attempts to restructure the loan, but the parties could not come to an agreement. 

Formula Kino and Cinema Park are the largest united cinema network in Russia, which owns 78 cinemas with 645 cinemas throughout the country – almost 12% of the total market.