Ward Anderson given go-ahead for €80m takeover of cinema chain

COMPETITION watchdogs have given the go-ahead to the Ward Anderson group’s €80 million takeover of a chain of 11 cinemas in Britain.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) decision leaves the group, which owns the Savoy cinema in Dublin and the Capitol Cineplex in Cork, free to acquire the cinemas from their current owners, venture capital firm Terra Firma Investments.

Terra Firma, which took over the giant UCI and Odeon chains last year in combined deals worth €850m, was forced to sell 11 of the groups’ cinemas in return for clearance for the transactions.

Ward Anderson beat off stiff competition from a number of industry heavyweights to land the deal, which is its first major acquisition outside Ireland.

The OFT said it had decided not to refer the Ward Anderson acquisition to the Competition Commission, because it was not of sufficient size to damage competition in the cinema market.

The terms of the deal will see Cinema Holdings, a company jointly owned by a Ward Anderson family trust and Thomas Anderson, one of the group’s top executives, take control of six UCI and five Odeon cinemas. The group already owns 36 cinemas in Ireland, which operate under the Cineplex, Omniplex and IMC brands.