Marius Schwarz, chief financial officer at German exhibition giant CinemaxX has quit following the posting of half-year company losses of $22.5m (DM52.3m)

Subsequent restructuring of the company has led to the closure of the its foreign operations and the removal of its chief, Wim Oude Kotte.

Stating its intention to revise its expansionist strategy and concentrate on the domestic market, publicly-listed CinemaxX told its shareholders it had sold its cinema interests in Turkey, transferred its Swiss operation into a local joint venture and had handed over its planned site in Austria to Constantin. In addition, both its Danish and Hungarian operations were nearing an exit from its portfolio.

In an official statement ahead of the shareholders' meeting, CinemaxX indicated that it did not expect that it would be able to report a positive result for 2001 "as a result of the radical reorganisation measures that will be required this year, since the balance sheet will once again have to absorb considerable one-off expenditure on the streamlining of foreign operations".