Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Carmike Cinemas Announces Senior Management Changes

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Ground Level » Carmike Cinemas Announces Senior Management Changes (Page 1)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3

Author

Topic: Carmike Cinemas Announces Senior Management Changes

Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 01-20-2009 06:44 PM

Link

quote:
CARMIKE CINEMAS ANNOUNCES SENIOR MANAGEMENT CHANGES
Michael W. Patrick Departs Carmike
– S. David Passman, Carmike’s Lead Independent Director, Named Non-Executive Chairman
COLUMBUS, GA – January 20, 2009 – Carmike Cinemas, Inc. (NASDAQ: CKEC) announced today the departure of its chief executive officer and president, Michael W. Patrick, effective Monday, January 19, 2009. Mr. Patrick remains a member of Carmike’s board of directors.
The board of directors has appointed S. David Passman III, currently Carmike’s lead independent director, as the non-executive chairman of the board of directors. In addition, the board of directors has established an Office of the Chairman. The Office of the Chairman will focus on the strategic direction of Carmike and transition Carmike to new chief executive leadership. The Office of the Chairman will include Mr. Passman, as non-executive chairman of the board, Fred W. Van Noy, Carmike’s chief operating officer, and Richard B. Hare, Carmike’s chief financial officer.
“We thank Michael for his service to Carmike,” said Mr. Passman. “I am honored to have the opportunity to work closely with my fellow board members and Carmike’s senior management team as non-executive chairman to seek new opportunities to create shareholder value. I have confidence in our team at Carmike and believe the company is poised to take full advantage of the opportunity presented by digital cinema. We are optimistic about Carmike’s future.”
Mr. Passman, 56, has been a member of Carmike’s board since June 2003 and currently serves as a member of the audit, executive and compensation and nominating committees. Mr. Passman recently retired from his position as the president and chief executive officer of IBS-STL, Inc., a book publishing and distribution company, where he has served since June 2005.
Previously, Mr. Passman served as the president of the Harland Printed Products and Harland Checks divisions of John H. Harland Company, a provider of printed products and software and related services to the financial institution market, from 1999 to 2003. He served as Harland’s chief financial officer from 1996 to 1999. Mr. Passman is a former partner of Deloitte & Touche LLP where he served as the Managing Partner of the Atlanta office from 1993 to 1996.
About Carmike Cinemas
Carmike Cinemas, Inc. is a U.S. leader in digital cinema and 3-D cinema deployments and one of the nation’s largest motion picture exhibitors. As of September 30, 2008, Carmike had 250 theatres with 2,276 screens in 36 states. Carmike’s digital cinema footprint reaches 2,147 screens, of which 430 are also equipped with 3-D capability. Carmike’s focus for its theatre locations is small to mid-sized communities with populations of fewer than 100,000.

| IP: Logged

David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 01-20-2009 10:05 PM

So basically Mr. Passman's qualifications for running a movie theater company is he knows how to sell limitless paper products to a paperless world. That reminds me of when I worked for a multinational video game company and they hired a new CEO from Keebler Crackers.

Oh relax Passman, I'm just messin' with you. [beer]

| IP: Logged

Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-20-2009 10:45 PM

Wow, so the Mike in Carmike is jumping ship?? I smell a rotting corpse about to get eated.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-20-2009 11:05 PM

The new guy probably just offered to work for less money.

| IP: Logged

Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 01-20-2009 11:38 PM

At the moment I know nothing beyond what is in the press release; and if I knew more I probably couldn't say anything anyway.

If you read the press release carefully you'll notice it doesn't say under what circumstances Mr. Patrick left. Mr. Passman is also not the new CEO; he is only in charge until a new CEO can be found.

As I said, I haven't gotten the inside scoop yet, just me reading the press release.

[ 01-21-2009, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: Dustin Mitchell ]

| IP: Logged

Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 01-21-2009 07:39 AM

'Bout time! Last bankrupcy, stock fell when it announced that he was staying on. Louis

| IP: Logged

Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 01-21-2009 08:16 AM

So he is replaced by a man who previous experience is printing "checks" [Razz]

| IP: Logged

Scott D. Neff
Theatre Dork

Posts: 919
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 01-22-2009 12:32 PM

Yeah, it reads to me like a polite firing. Perhaps he didn't want to sell the rest of the company to Mark Cuban. [Smile]

| IP: Logged

Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 01-22-2009 02:55 PM

It always amazes me how there are professional "executives", who do nothing but run corporations... regardless of whether they have experience or not in that company's business.

I don't think anyone has started as a janitor and moved up the ladder to be CEO of any company since David Sarnoff.

| IP: Logged

Jason Black
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1723
From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-22-2009 10:02 PM

It's been no big surprise to several that Mike Patrick has pissed off several shareholders and BOD members with his actions and lack of regard for Corporate Operations over the last few years. I don't think he ever really accepted the fact that when the company went public, he relinquished control. Carmike needs a real overhaul of LOTS of Senior management before any huge turn arounds are noted.

Personally, I found his 'firing' poetic justice, to say the least. Perhaps they will secure someone who actually knows what true theatre operations are about to helm the BOD. For this role, one would have to really focus on the theatre experience as a POSITIVE one, not what is currently endured by patrons.

| IP: Logged

Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 01-22-2009 11:22 PM

Awww, this means no more Christmas Cards with his son standing next to a brand new Ferrari?

I'm disappointed that the Carl and Mike of Carmike are no longer with the company. Maybe the next step is changing the name of the company - since the Carmike name is associated with Quality Film Presentations. [puke]

| IP: Logged

Paul Van Dusen
Film Handler

Posts: 82
From: Roanoke, VA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 01-23-2009 02:20 AM

From what i've been told Mike is going to stay on and Chairman of the board, but has relinquished all of his CEO responsibility. I guess the fact of the matter is he still owns a lot of stock in the company and is as thus entitled to a spot on the board. I do know that there has been an open call to us theatre managers for suggestions on possible improvements to the operations side of the company. It's only been a few days and I already feel like corporate actually wants to hear my ideas. This seems to have changed the whole dynamic of the interaction between the operations department and senior management.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-23-2009 09:44 AM

Here's one idea: the company's senior management might want to try allowing the theaters to operate with more than an absolute minimal level of staff.

To me it seems like the company's main tool for increasing profit the past few years has been to carve all of it out of payroll numbers. At some point, that strategy backfires in the form of poor or absent customer service.

If the theater actually has enough employees in the building to move customers through the snack counter lines quickly and periodically check auditoriums for presentation problems or disruptions from the audience (and throw disruptive bastards out of the building) it would improve the customer's movie-going experience significantly. You would get more people coming back to the theater more often.

Carmike deserves at least some points for converting nearly all of its first run screens to digital cinema. The conversion may have been a bit of a visual downgrade for its best theaters, but overall it has been a big, positive improvement in most of its locations.

Unfortunately, Carmike still has many old theater locations, many of which it acquired when the company was strangely chasing after the idea of being the first company to have more than 5000 screens. They never reached that goal and instead wound up with lots of crappy little multiplex sites requiring lots of improvement but situated in little communities with not enough paying customers to properly support the theater.

And that gets to the worst factor facing Carmike: the company specializes at running theaters in cities and towns with under 100,000 people. Um, where's the money and enough paying movie-goers in that?

So many people are doing all of their movie watching at home that it's just going to get very difficult for most small towns to be able to continue operating movie theaters in the traditional sense. HDTV and Blu-ray will make that already bad situation dramatically worse.

A lot of small towns in which Carmike has locations don't have high income demographics and they're shedding population to bigger cities too. The shortened release windows for home video has ruined a lot of bargain/2nd run business. That makes it even more vital for a theater to succeed in the first run business, and you need a good customer base for that. There's just not enough of that in Carmike's traditional small town markets and that customer base is shrinking further.

Long term, I think Carmike will have to start competing directly with other theater companies in larger cities and consolidate its presence the bigger cities where it already operates, such as Raleigh, NC. They have to close down lots of little theaters with out-dated designs and build just a few really good, big theaters at "destination" sites.

| IP: Logged

Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-23-2009 09:46 AM

Maybe it is time for Carmike to return to its roots: Monopoly holdings in small towns. It is clearly getting its butt kicked everywhere else.

And just an odd thing here in Montgomery, they never update their yellow pages listings. The Eastdale Triple has been an 8plex for at least 10 years. The Carmike 8 has been closed for years, was run by a different chain for a few years and is now a church. The Wynnsong closed just over a year ago. Yet all of them are still listed in the yellow pages. Its a weird lack of attention to detail that seems to characterize Carmike.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-23-2009 10:03 AM

quote: Martin McCaffery
Maybe it is time for Carmike to return to its roots: Monopoly holdings in small towns. It is clearly getting its butt kicked everywhere else.

Carmike can't survive that way. Too much movie theater business is disappearing in the small towns. Hell, too many people are moving from small towns to bigger cities.

I contend Carmike hasn't faced anywhere near enough competition to get a proper strategy/philosophy in place. They have relied way too much on the monopoly presence in small towns to survive. In cities like Colorado Springs, they've lost a great deal of their business when new competitors (in this case, Cinemark) moved to town. Cinemark now has two locations in that market, one with an IMAX theater. Carmike didn't build any new theaters there to answer the challenge. They should have been doing just that and also have the balls to move into other big markets to challenge other companies. If they're not willing to go toe to toe against AMC, Cinemark, Regal, etc. that puts their long term survival in doubt.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.