AMC Entertainment Holdings put out a casting call for a new external auditor, and EY got the role.
Kansas City Business Journal reported:
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. will switch its accounting firm at the end of the year. The Leawood-based theater chain picked Ernst & Young, replacing KPMG LLP.
AMC paid KPMG more than $12.7 million in audit, audit-related and tax fees for 2018, according to the company’s most recent proxy statement. That’s up from $10.1 million for 2017.
A change in outside accountants at AMC comes as the company prepares for a new CFO. Sean Goodman, former CFO of Asbury Automotive Group, will join AMC in December as a senior vice president. He will become CFO in February, when current CFO Craig Ramsey retires.
The House of Klynveld had served as AMC’s auditor since 2009 when it dumped PwC after a two-year run. But AMC’s audit committee decided to make a change after inviting several firms, including KPMG, to participate in a selection process, according to Kansas City Business Journal.
KPMG has had a rough time holding onto engagements with movie theater companies this year. In June, U.K.-based theater chain Cineworld, the parent company of Regal Cinemas in the U.S., dumped KPMG in favor of PwC. KPMG had been Cineworld’s auditor for 15 years.
And AMC isn’t the first public company audit client KPMG has lost to the Black and Yellow this year. In fact, of the 19 audit clients KPMG has lost in the first three quarters of 2019, seven have been to EY, according to Audit Analytics, including the Papa John’s gig.
Speaking of Papa John’s, what the hell is John Schnatter talking about in this interview, and more importantly, what the hell happened to his voice?
The Papa John interview is lovely pic.twitter.com/bpDMDm9t9G
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) November 26, 2019
So weird.
