Suicide Squad, Jason Bourne And Star Trek Helped Boost AMC's Admissions In Q3

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC impressed the Street with its third-quarter results on Monday, which prompted Kannan Venkateshwar of Barclays to reaffirm a bullish stance on the stock.

Rating And Justification

Venkateshwar reiterated an Outperform rating on AMC Entertainment's stock with an unchanged $29 price target. The analyst highlighted several positive data points in the company's earnings report including a 12.6 percent growth in admissions revenue, which exceeded the industry's average of 12.3 percent.

Venkateshwar added that the top movies in the quarter include “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Suicide Squad,” “Jason Bourne,” “Star Trek Beyond” and “Finding Dory.” Even though two of these titles are family-oriented, the other three were "strong blockbusters that played to AMC's demographics" to the point where attendance grew 9.7 percent to 51.9 million, which was also above the industry average of 8.7 percent.

Other data points from the quarter include a 2.6 percent increase in ticket price to $9.57 and a 4.8 percent growth in average concession per patron to $4.80.

A Look Ahead

Looking forward to next year, Venkateshwar stated that investors are likely to focus on the closing of the Carmike Cinemas, Inc. CKEC deal, which will be voted on November 15, and the Odean deal. Investors should pay close attention to see if the movie chain will be able to begin delivering on its synergy targets.