A North East cinema has closed its doors with immediate effect after administrators were brought in.
The UK’s Empire Cinemas, which has 14 theatres with 129 screens across the UK, has closed its site in Sunderland – meaning the city now has no cinema – following the appointment of Tony Nygate, John Strowger and Danny Dartnaill at BDO LLP as joint administrators.
The 12-screen cinema in the city centre originally opened back in 2004 as a Cineworld site but the company was acquired by Empire Cinemas in March 2006, leading to a number of cinemas being re-branded under the Empire banner, including the Wearside site.
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The closure has led to 22 redundancies at the cinema, while a further two employees have been kept on in the short term to assist with site closure. Empire Cinemas chief executive Justin Robbins has posted a note on the firm’s website, which states: “Tony Nygate, John Strowger Danny Dartnaill were appointed joint administrators of Empire Cinemas Limited on 7 July 2023 and it is with regret that we announce the closure of Empire Cinemas Sunderland with immediate effect.
“As a consequence of Covid-19, where we were mandated by Government to close down our cinema chain in its entirety for protracted periods in 2020 and 2021 and this left us with a high fixed cost base and no income. Cinema attendance levels have not yet returned to pre-Covid-19 levels and the operating environment remains extremely challenging.
“It has been a difficult economic environment for any business to manage through without long term damage and having exhausted all other available options for the business, we firmly believe that this process can be a platform to restructure the business and preserve as many of our cinemas and the maximum number of jobs as possible.
“Refunds for tickets bought online and those purchased at the Box Office using a debit/credit/gift card will be refunded automatically. We are extremely grateful for your support over the years.”
A number of other cinemas around the country have also been shuttered, including cinemas at Bishop’s Stortford, Catterick Garrison, Swindon, Walthamstow and Wigan which have ceased trading with a number of redundancies.
The rest of the company’s portfolio – at Ipswich, Sutton, Birmingham, Clydebank, High Wycombe, as well as two Tivoli sites in Bath and Cheltenham, will continue to trade while the joint administrators hunt for a buyer for the business.
Tony Nygate, BDO business restructuring partner, said: “The well-publicised challenges for the leisure sector from the impact of COVID-19, rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis have significantly affected the Companies’ business. The remaining open sites are continuing to trade while we explore the sale of as much of the business as possible.”
