Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 4, 1990 TAG: 9005040128
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
SKS is buying 80 movie screens in 18 Virginia locations from Cineplex Odeon Corp., a Toronto, Canada, company. The other locations are from Farmville to Norfolk to Fredericksburg.
SKS now owns eight theaters from Falls Church to Norfolk.
Sam Bendheim, president of SKS, said the Roanoke market "has great possibilities" and he expects no changes in operations.
Bendheim was an employee of Neighborhood Theatre Inc., a Richmond company that once owned most of the other movie houses now returning to Virginia ownership.
Cineplex, operating under a heavy debt, decided to stay in major markets, Bendheim said. It said it will use $17 million of the sale price to reduce bank debt and pay notes and mortgages.
A few of the Virginia theaters in the SKS transaction have negative cash flow but they are generally profitable, Bendheim said. The Roanoke theaters are in the black, he said.
Terrace theater opened in 1967 and Towers in 1969, both started by Dominion Theaters of Charlotte. In 1979, ABC Theaters sold the two Roanoke operations to Plitt Theaters; Cineplex later bought Plitt. - Staff report
by CNB