The future of the beleaguered Kinowelt group will be decided once and for all at a meeting in Munich today.

The creditor committee of the ABN Amro Bank, BHF Bank and HypoVereinsbank will hear presentations from two groups bidding to take over the running of Kinowelt's core operations of theatrical distribution, home entertainment, and TV licensing.

While the management buyout bid from Kinowelt managers Marcus Schoefer and Jerry Payne still stands, a rival bid has been put together by Kinowelt's co-founders Michael and Rainer Koelmel with the Munich and Los Angeles-based film development, financing and marketing outfit OpenPictures.

In an official statement, Kinowelt said that the temporary insolvency administrator Dr Wolfgang Ott "expects that a definitive decision on the further existence of Kinowelt will be taken", but pointed out that, "should this not succeed, then Dr Ott will have to close and wind up Kinowelt's business operations in the next few days".

"The breaking up variation would the worse solution of all for the creditors", Ott said.