CJ CGV shares started off strong Tuesday morning after the company said it has decided to acquire Turkey’s largest cinema chain Mars Entertainment Group.
The company’s share price rose as much as 4.1 percent to hit 101,000 won ($87.30) during Tuesday morning trading.
The nation’s largest multiscreen operator said Monday it will takeover the Turkish company for 605 million euros ($688 million) in a consortium with other financial investors.
“CJ CGV will hold a 38.12 percent stake and other financial investors will hold the remaining 61.88 percent,” the company said in a regulatory filing, without identifying the other partners.
The other investors include Korean private equity fund IMM Private Equity.
IMM Private Equity CEO Song In-jun told The Korea Herald that the company will invest about 100 billion won in the Turkish firm and plans to exit in four or five years.
Mars Entertainment Group, established in 2001, is Turkey’s largest cinema chain and film distributor with 710 screens under the brand name of Cinemaximum. It has a 42 percent market share in terms of box office in Turkey.
The group was previously owned by Turkish private equity fund Actera Group and Esas Holdings.
CJ CGV runs 249 multiscreen theaters with 1,853 screens in six countries, including Korea, the U.S., China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar.
It plans to increase the number of screens globally to 10,000 by 2020.
Earlier in the day, the unit of conglomerate CJ Group also said it acquired an additional 7.8 percent stake in Indonesia’s theater operator PT Graha Layar Prima Tbk for 34.7 billion won, increasing its stake in the firm to 40.25 percent.
By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)