Eduardo Leal, former group director of content at UK exhibitor Vue Entertainment International, is among a tranche of Vue senior staff who have been made redundant in recent months ahead of an expected sale or flotation later in the year.
Others include chief strategy officer Ramneet Bassi, general counsel Euan Sutton, chief operating officer Matt Eyre, executive marketing director Shona Gold, group head of insight Ruth Hinton, group director of corporate sales David Jackson and group partnerships manager Shivali Ramanandi.
It is also understood that Chris Stone, group director of project management office, has left the company. Some of the redundancies have resulted from changes in the group commercial team.
Vue, which was founded in 1999 by CEO Tim Richards and operates over 2,000 screens in eight countries, is still carrying significant debt, partly as a result of restructurings in the wake of the Covid slowdown. Lenders including Barings, the hedge fund Farallon Capital, and the investment management group Invesco, which currently own Vue, are now expected to “cash out”.
Sources have reported that Vue could be valued as high as £1.5bn ($2bn) in the event of a sale. Observers also say that in the build-up to a sale, Vue would aim to cut costs and to streamline staffing, although one senior UK exhibition figure expressed surprise at the number of high-level departures. “They have let go of some very good people,” they commented.
The company has closed some sites this year, shuttering cinemas in Rhyl, Shiprow in Aberdeen, and Croydon. It has also embraced AI and has been trialling “Vue Your Way”, using automation to allow visitors to self-manage their visits.
“The company has to right-size the operation for the future and be attractive to buyers, whether that be an IPO, trade sale or new equity investors,” commented one exhibition expert. “Fundamentally, Vue is resetting the business for the current and future to enable it to be sustainable, investable and commercially profitable.”
One analyst predicted that other circuits might now also pare back staffing.
“With Vue and the industry entering a new phase of recovery and technological input, it seems likely that this will require a broader review of employee requirements across the market and not just at a single operator,” they said.
Vue’s group chief financial officer James McArthur, who was appointed last September, is understood to have been preparing the company for a change in ownership, with management consultants Eden McCallum also brought in at the end of last year to review Vue’s operations.
Last month, financial analysts S&P Global upgraded their rating of Vue from CCC+ to B-, citing the company’s “organic revenue growth and prudent cost management”.
Screen has contacted Richards for comment.
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