SINGAPORE - Media company mm2 Asia Ltd is in discussions with Village Cinemas Australia Pty Ltd to buy the Golden Village cinema business here, it said in a statement to the media on Friday (May 19).
Mm2, which is based in Singapore, is negotiating to buy Village Cinemas' entire stake in Dartina Development Limited, a company incorporated in Hong Kong which holds the Golden Village Cinema business in Singapore.
Golden Village is Singapore's largest cinema chain with 92 screens. In a previous report, The Straits Times reported that it took 42 per cent of box-office revenue here.
It has 11 cineplexes across Singapore, with a 12th to open in Paya Lebar later this year.
Mm2's talks to acquire Golden Village comes soon after mm2 announced that it will be co-producing five films with media conglomerate Turner Asia Pacific over the next three years. According to a press release, the films will be produced with a "multi-million dollar budget".
Under the new deal, the partners' first release will be Wonder Boy, a biopic starring popular singer Benjamin Kheng in the role of singer-songwriter Dick Lee. Directed by Lee and Daniel Yam, the film is slated for release in August.
Two other family-oriented films and two films by local box-office king Jack Neo are also in the works under the new deal.
mm2 was formed in Malaysia in 2008 and is now headquartered in Singapore.
In December 2014, it made history by becoming the first - and thus far only - local movie production company to be listed on Catalist, the secondary board of the Singapore Exchange.
The outfit launched its initial public offering with a placement of 37.4 million shares at 25 cents each, raising $5.7 million in net proceeds.
Mm2 also announced that its net profit for the half-year ended Sept 30, 2016, rose 97 per cent to $8.9 million. Revenue growth for the same period almost tripled to $35 million, from $12.7 million. The increase came from the additional revenue generated by its newly acquired subsidiary, Unusual, as well as its cinema operations business in Malaysia.
