Looks like Hoyts is called off ?? indefinitely by: Bridget...

Looks like Hoyts is called off ?? indefinitely

• by: Bridget Carter
• From: The Australian
• November 07, 2014
• PACIFIC Equity Partners has abandoned plans for a trade sale or initial public offering of its $900 million cinema chain Hoyts, according to sources.

The company had recently been involved in plans for an IPO through investment bank UBS, but it was recently delayed until next year.
It is now understood that the deal has been suspended indefinitely.

The group operates 43 cinemas across Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Hoyts Kiosk DVD distribution chain, and cinema advertising business Val Morgan.
Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group was believed to have been sounded out by UBS as a potential buyer of the business before the group moved forward with plans for an IPO.

The Australian first flagged in February that the company had been earmarked for a potential flotation.
The timing of the IPO was aimed to capitalise on the prospect of a strong box office lasting at least two years.
The late Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings bought Hoyts in 1999 for $405 million, and in 2005 the group was sold to another Packer company, PBL, and West Australian Newspapers, with each company taking a 50 per cent stake.
In 2007, PEP acquired the shares in a deal that valued the company at $440m.

Global hedge funds had been courted in recent months by bankers to invest in the planned float.
Damian Keogh was recently appointed chief executive of the company