MoviePass CEO Says AMC, Others Are Out To Get The Company

Ted Farnsworth, the head of Helios and Matheson Analytics, which owns MoviePass told TheStreet.com in an interview that AMC and others like it are making a concerted effort to put MoviePass out of business.

According to TheStreet.com, Farnsworth said: “I think there’s a concerted effort out there from AMC and other players trying to put us out of business, with the whole scare tactic of ‘can they survive, are they sustainable, can they make it, they’re burning cash.’ Of course, we’re burning cash, but so does Amazon. And then there’s Netflix, doing original content and losing $4 billion this year,” Farnsworth said. He told TheStreet.com that the company will be cash flow positive by the end of 2018 despite analyst predictions the company won’t turn a profit before 2020.  He noted that the company has a little more than 5 million subscribers and is cashflow positive on the subscription side of things.

The interview comes a few weeks after MoviePass announced it will sell up to $1.2 billion of equity and debt securities over the course of three years. In a press release, Helios and Matheson announced it has filed a universal shelf registration statement on Form S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The shelf registration will give the company the flexibility to finance growth, including for MoviePass, MoviePass Ventures, MoviePass Films and Moviefone. In June, Helios and Matheson Analytics announced it was issuing $164 million in bonds and 20,500 shares of preferred stock. In a press release at the time, the MoviePass parent company said the net proceeds from the offering and preferred stock would be used for general corporate purposes. The company said the notes would be convertible at a conversion price of $1, subject to adjustment. The preferred stock would not be convertible into common stock. Each share of preferred stock was entitled to 3,205 votes per share.