Patrons watch a 3D movie at an IMAX theater in Beijing in 2012. (Photo : Wall Street Journal/Associated Press)
IMAX Corp.’s China division is seeking to raise around $300 million in a Hong Kong initial public offering as early as the third quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday quoting insider sources, as the Canadian film company seeks to delve into China’s rapidly growing movie market.
The NYSE-listed IMAX applied to the Hong Kong stock exchange for a listing of IMAX China Holding Inc. late last month, with Morgan Stanley as its lead banker, the report said.
The planned Hong Kong listing by the company, which built its first giant movie screens in China in 1998, comes as the Chinese film industry continues to skyrocket. China's box-office revenue shot up 34 percent to $4.7 billion in 2014 from the past year, making the country the world's second-largest film market next to the U.S., according to consultancy firm EntGroup. The consultancy foresees China to surpass the U.S. market by 2017 with box-office revenue of $11.7 billion.
In China, IMAX's top customer is Wanda Cinema, the theater arm of the real-estate conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group. Owned by Wang Jianlin, one of China's richest men, Wanda Cinema had 117 IMAX screens in its 167 theaters as of 2014, of which many are housed in large shopping malls.
IMAX now owns an 80-percent stake in IMAX China, having sold the remaining stake to two Chinese investors (CMC Capital Partners, an investment fund focused on media and entertainment; and Hong Kong-based private equity firm FountainVest Partners) for a total of $80 million the previous year.
IMAX China, which had 239 theaters across China as of March this year, plans to add 219 theaters by the end of 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The technology has been gaining more popularity globally, with movies such as Steven Spielberg's latest blockbuster "Jurassic World" shown in IMAX 3D and renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou's "Coming Home" also released in IMAX theaters.
