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AMC, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

Entertainment & Studios capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

We expect, from time to time, to continue to seek to retire or purchase our outstanding debt through cash purchases and/or exchanges for equity or debt, in open-market purchases, privately negotiated transactions or otherwise.

On December 22, 2025, the Company and the holders of the New Exchangeable Notes agreed to amend the New Exchangeable Notes Indenture, among other things, to amend and restate the Exchange Rate and allow for up to $150.0 million of net proceeds from sales of at-the-market offerings.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

AMC · AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$4.8B

+4.6% YoY · 31% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $5.0B 5-yr avg $4.1B

Gross margin 78%

Operating margin 1.6% 5-yr avg −10.8%

Owner-earnings margin −2% 5-yr avg −14%

Free cash flow margin −2% 5-yr avg −14%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is US Markets (76%) and International Markets (24%).
Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −1.5% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −144 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −3%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

US Markets is 76% of revenue, with International Markets the other meaningful segment at 24%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

US Markets76%$3.7B
International Markets24%$1.1B

By geographyUnited States76%United Kingdom9%Spain3%Italy3%Germany3%Sweden3%Other3%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$3.2B	$5.1B	$5.5B	$5.5B	$1.2B	$2.5B	$3.9B	$4.8B	$4.6B	$4.8B	$5.0B	RevenueRevenue
—	3%	3%	3%	—	—	—	—	—	—	3%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$214M	$102M	$265M	$136M	($4.1B)	($930M)	($522M)	($74M)	($79M)	($17M)	$83M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
6.6%	2.0%	4.9%	2.5%	−330.2%	−36.8%	−13.4%	−1.5%	−1.7%	−0.4%	1.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$112M	($487M)	$110M	($149M)	($4.6B)	($1.3B)	($974M)	($397M)	($353M)	($632M)	($547M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
$432M	$537M	$523M	$579M	($1.1B)	($614M)	($629M)	($215M)	($51M)	($120M)	$122M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$268M	$539M	$538M	$450M	$498M	$425M	$396M	$365M	$320M	$313M	$313M	DepreciationDeprec.
$47M	$480M	($140M)	$274M	$2.9B	$187M	($73M)	($226M)	($40M)	$182M	$338M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$422M	$627M	$576M	$518M	$174M	$92M	$202M	$226M	$246M	$246M	$245M	CapexCapex
13.0%	12.3%	10.6%	9.4%	14.0%	3.7%	5.2%	4.7%	5.3%	5.1%	4.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$10M	($89M)	($53M)	$61M	($1.3B)	($707M)	($831M)	($441M)	($296M)	($366M)	($124M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
0.3%	−1.8%	−1.0%	1.1%	−104.9%	−27.9%	−21.2%	−9.2%	−6.4%	−7.5%	−2.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$10M	($89M)	($53M)	$61M	($1.3B)	($707M)	($831M)	($441M)	($296M)	($366M)	($124M)	Free cash flowFCF
0.3%	−1.8%	−1.0%	1.1%	−104.9%	−27.9%	−21.2%	−9.2%	−6.4%	−7.5%	−2.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	—	$12M	—	$8M	$18M	$4M	—	—	$4M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$80M	$105M	$258M	$84M	$7M	—	$700K	—	—	—	$700K	Dividends paidDiv. paid
3%	—	4%	—	-128%	-36%	-22%	-3%	-4%	-1%	—	ROICROIC
6%	-23%	8%	-12%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
2%	−28%	−11%	−19%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$207M	$310M	$313M	$265M	$308M	$1.6B	$632M	$884M	$632M	$429M	$339M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$214M	$272M	$260M	$254M	$91M	$169M	$167M	$204M	$168M	$156M	$103M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$502M	$570M	$453M	$543M	$299M	$377M	$331M	$321M	$378M	$383M	$274M	Accounts payablePayables
($288M)	($298M)	($193M)	($289M)	($208M)	($209M)	($164M)	($117M)	($210M)	($227M)	($170M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$684M	$872M	$781M	$673M	$487M	$1.9B	$902M	$1.2B	$947M	$731M	$583M	Current assetsCur. assets
$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.7B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.6×	0.6×	0.6×	0.3×	0.3×	1.0×	0.5×	0.7×	0.5×	0.4×	0.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$3.9B	$4.9B	$4.8B	$4.8B	$2.5B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$8.6B	$9.8B	$9.5B	$13.7B	$10.3B	$10.8B	$9.1B	$9.0B	$8.2B	$8.0B	$7.7B	Total assetsAssets
$3.8B	$4.2B	$4.7B	$4.8B	$5.7B	$5.4B	$5.1B	$4.6B	$4.1B	$4.0B	$4.8B	Total debtDebt
$3.6B	$3.9B	$4.4B	$4.5B	$5.4B	$3.8B	$4.5B	$3.7B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$4.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.8×	0.4×	0.8×	0.4×	-11.5×	-2.0×	-1.4×	-0.2×	-0.2×	-0.0×	0.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.0B	$2.1B	$1.4B	$1.2B	($2.9B)	($1.8B)	($2.6B)	($1.8B)	($1.8B)	($1.9B)	($1.9B)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	2.0%	1.7%	0.6%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
98.9M	128M	130M	104M	234M	95.5M	105M	168M	333M	473M	540M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$32.73	$39.61	$41.97	$52.97	$5.30	$26.48	$37.33	$28.71	$13.93	$10.25	$9.32	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.13	$-3.80	$0.85	$-1.44	$-19.58	$-13.29	$-9.29	$-2.37	$-1.06	$-1.34	$-1.01	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.10	$-0.70	$-0.41	$0.59	$-5.56	$-7.40	$-7.93	$-2.63	$-0.89	$-0.77	$-0.23	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.10	$-0.70	$-0.41	$0.59	$-5.56	$-7.40	$-7.93	$-2.63	$-0.89	$-0.77	$-0.23	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.81	$0.82	$1.98	$0.81	$0.03	—	$0.01	—	—	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$4.27	$4.89	$4.43	$4.99	$0.74	$0.97	$1.93	$1.35	$0.74	$0.52	$0.45	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$20.33	$16.47	$10.74	$11.69	$-12.31	$-18.74	$-25.05	$-11.02	$-5.29	$-4.01	$-3.57	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.26 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1/2.46 into 2021 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.6 into 2023 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.99 into 2024 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.42 into 2025 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−12.1%/yr	+14.1%/yr
Dividends / share	−55.0%/yr (6-yr)	−61.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	−20.8%/yr	−6.8%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Food and Beverage+2.9%
“Food and beverage revenues increased $46.4 million, or 2.9%, during the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, primarily due to the increase in food and beverage per patron, partially offset by a decrease in attendance.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

473Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−1%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($366M)owner earningsvs.($632M)net incomelow FY2020

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2019

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned a $632M loss into ($366M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($632M)	($353M)	($397M)	($974M)	($1.3B)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$313M	+$320M	+$365M	+$396M	+$425M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$17M	+$22M	+$43M	+$23M	+$43M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$182M	−$40M	−$226M	−$73M	+$187M
Cash from operations	($120M)	($51M)	($215M)	($629M)	($614M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$246M	−$246M	−$226M	−$202M	−$92M
Owner earnings	($366M)	($296M)	($441M)	($831M)	($707M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-8%	-6%	-9%	-21%	-28%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $17M), owner earnings is nearer ($383M).

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -0.0×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($17M) ÷ interest expense $530M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $3.6B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $429M − debt $4.0B

What this means
Netting $429M of cash and short-term investments against $4.0B of debt leaves $3.6B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -117d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 12 + DIO 0 − DPO 128 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -4%

Below average through the cycle

8-yr median, range -128%–4%; -1% latest = NOPAT ($14M) ÷ invested capital $1.7B

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 years (it ran -1% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin -8%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -105%–1%; latest ($366M) = operating cash ($120M) − maintenance capex $246M

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -8% of revenue this year, a -8% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $17M of SBC) leaves ($383M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($120M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($632M) · cash from operations ($120M)

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.79×

Harvesting

Capex $246M ÷ depreciation $313M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $4.8B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.41×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $4.0B vs ($1.0B) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 8 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 6 of 9 tagged yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design. One year of this record is untagged in the data, with the dividend paid on both sides; a lone missing tag is treated as unknown, not a suspension, so the streak is judged on the tagged years.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.75/share (latest year $-1.03), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-3.10/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 2 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 4% → −1% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words Input costs rose and the filing says it could not fully pass them on — which is where this margin compressed.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 4% early to −1% lately, median −2% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2020 · −330.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 6 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Competitors with superior AI-driven guest experience capabilities, operational optimization, or marketing effectiveness could achieve competitive advantages that materially impact our market position in the highly competitive entertainment industry.”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$583M

Cash & short-term investments$339M
Receivables$103M
Other current assets$140M

Current liabilities$1.7B

Debt due within a year$20M
Accounts payable$274M
Other current liabilities$1.4B

Current ratio0.35×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.35×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($1.1B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$20M due · $339M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+21.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.7× → 0.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($4.5B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($9.0B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$7.9B$3.9B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $8.1B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$401Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$20M

'27$545M

'28$20M

'29$3.2B

'30$267M

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

Due in the next 12 months$20Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$565Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$3.2Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$4.0Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $4.0B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$339M

Together, against $20M due next year17.0×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 comes to $339M against the $20M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 17 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$946M

'27$890M

'28$801M

'29$694M

'30$591M

later$2.0B

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$946Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$5.9Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$4.0Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$4.0B

Lease obligations (present value)$4.0B

Total fixed claims on the business$8.1B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $8.1B, of which the leases are 50%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$2.6B32% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$42Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $3.3B of capital spent building

$2.3B written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2020	Adam M. Aron	$20.9M	$11.6M	($1.3B)
2021	Adam M. Aron	$18.9M	$94.1M	($707M)
2022	Adam M. Aron	$23.7M	−$16.1M	($831M)
2023	Adam M. Aron	$25.4M	$8.9M	($441M)
2024	Adam M. Aron	$11.4M	$10.4M	($296M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio974:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

3 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−7.7% vs −0.8%
The business ran at a loss early in the record (an owner-earnings margin of −0.8%) and the loss has widened to −7.7% across the last three years, with the latest year at −7.5%. Ask the filing where the widening sits — price, cost, or spending growing faster than revenue — and what would narrow it.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$3.8B → $4.8B
Debt rose from $3.8B to $4.8B while owner earnings went from about ($44M) to ($368M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?10 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 10 of the last 10 years, $5.4B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, nearest by economic model

No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (capital-intensive), compared on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
NXSTNexstar Media Group Inc.	$4.9B	—	24.3%	9%	22%
WFRDWeatherford International plc	$4.9B	56%	3.2%	5%	5%
AMCAMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.	$4.8B	78%	-1.0%	-3%	-7%
JHXJames Hardie Industries plc.	$4.8B	39%	16.9%	16%	15%
CIENCiena Corporation	$4.8B	43%	7.5%	9%	9%
ATIATI Inc	$4.6B	15%	6.5%	8%	-0%
CNKCinemark Holdings, Inc.	$3.1B	—	9.9%	9%	5%
MCSMarcus Corporation (The)	$758M	—	3.4%	5%	8%
Group median	—	43%	7.0%	9%	6%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered29%/yr’20→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−2%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh AMC against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (AMC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/AMC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← AMBQ its page in the Manual AMCR →

Industry order: ← AHMA the Entertainment & Studios chapter ANGX →