Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (CNK): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $35.04, Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (CNK) is priced for +9.0% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-09-07 · Exported: 2026-09-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CNK

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

Solve inputs: computed at a 7% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage (computed at the 7% minimum rate; the CAPM rate 3.5% sits below it).

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by earnings-power value, while asset-based lands below the price. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Earnings Families that call it expensive: Asset

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=5)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Operating profit is negative or near zero and the company has no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so years-to-repay cannot be computed honestly.

Operating profit is negative or near zero and there is no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so interest coverage cannot be computed honestly.

Bullet Takeaways

• Nearly 500 theatres across 14 countries make this one of the few exhibitors that came through the pandemic with its footprint and its balance sheet intact, and the first quarter of 2026 produced revenue of 643.1 million dollars, up 18.9 percent, on attendance of 39.0 million.
• The risk is structural rather than operational, and the company states it plainly: results depend on "the volume of new film content available, the box office performance of new film content released, the duration of the exclusive theatrical release window, and evolving consumer behavior", none of which this company controls.
• Watch the screen count against the revenue it produces: average screens fell from 5,803 in 2023 to 5,646 in 2025 while revenue per average screen rose from 528,463 dollars to 551,719 dollars.

Bull Case

Read this as a mature business that is still wearing the accounting of a catastrophe, because that is what it is. Cinemark went into 2020 with a normal capital structure and came out the other side with the equity mostly consumed, which is why book value per share now sits at 1.70 dollars against a share price above thirty. Nothing about that number describes the current business. What describes the current business is 3.1 billion dollars of revenue in 2025 producing operating income of 333.2 million dollars, a 10.7 percent operating margin. The company that generates those numbers is not distressed. The balance sheet that carries them is simply still healing.

The healing is measurable, and 2025 was the year the largest piece finished. Total long-term debt carrying value fell from 2,363.7 million dollars at the end of 2024 to 1,897.3 million a year later, largely because the 460.0 million dollars of 4.50 percent convertible senior notes matured on August 15, 2025. That single event did two things at once. It removed an obligation, and it removed the shares that obligation would have created: the weighted average diluted share count fell from 154.9 million in 2024 to 134.3 million in 2025, while the basic count barely moved at 115.6 million. A convertible maturing is deleveraging and de-dilution arriving together, which is rare and easy to miss in a headline.

Operationally the company is doing the thing that actually works in a shrinking industry, which is running fewer screens harder. Average screen count went from 5,803 in 2023 to 5,646 in 2025. Revenue per average screen went the other way, from 528,463 dollars to 551,719 dollars. Closing weak locations while pushing more revenue through the strong ones is unglamorous and it compounds.

The revenue mix is also drifting toward the higher-margin end. In the first quarter of 2026, premium large format screens produced 13 percent of worldwide admissions revenue, up 200 basis points on the year, motion seats produced 5 percent of total admissions revenue, up more than 150 basis points, and domestic food and beverage per patron reached an all-time high of 8.58 dollars. A concession stand does not have a content pipeline problem. It has a footfall problem, and every dollar of incremental spend per visitor drops through at a margin no admission ticket can match, because the studio takes a cut of the ticket and none of the popcorn.

There is a reframe worth making about what a theatrical release now is. The 10-K argues that "The theatrical release of a film generates the initial revenue stream, driving performance in downstream distribution channels, including streaming, which enhances overall asset value." On that reading, exhibition is not competing with streaming; it is the marketing event that makes a streaming asset worth more later. Studios that tested the alternative during the pandemic have largely gone back to windowing. The company also notes, on the cyclicality question, that "North American industry box office grew in six of the last eight recessions."

The 2026 slate is unusually dense with the kind of films that fill large-format screens. The 10-K lists The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, Toy Story 5, Minions 3, Moana, The Mandalorian & Grogu, The Odyssey and Jumanji 3 among the year's scheduled releases. The bear is right that Cinemark does not control that calendar. The bull point is narrower and harder to argue with: when the calendar is full, this operator now converts it at a higher margin, on fewer screens, with a smaller share count and less debt than it had two years ago.

Bear Case

The truth a holder has to sit with is that the product is a window, not a franchise, and the window belongs to somebody else. Cinemark owns buildings, projectors and a concession operation. It does not own a single film. The 10-K states the dependency without softening it: success rests on "the volume of new film content available, the box office performance of new film content released, the duration of the exclusive theatrical release window, and evolving consumer behavior with competition from other forms of in-and-out-of-home entertainment." Four variables, all of them set by studios, audiences or technology, none of them by management. A good operator inside that arrangement can improve its share of a pool. It cannot decide how big the pool is.

The pool itself is the issue. North American industry box office came to approximately 8.9 billion dollars in 2025, and the company's own footprint has been shrinking to fit it: average screens down from 5,803 in 2023 to 5,646 in 2025. Rising revenue per screen is a genuine achievement and it is also what a business does when the number of visits is not growing: it charges the remaining visitors more. Worldwide average ticket price was 7.98 dollars in the first quarter of 2026 and concession revenue per patron was 6.54 dollars. Concession spend is now more than four fifths of the ticket. There is a ceiling to that trade, and nobody knows exactly where it is.

Profitability has been drifting the wrong way even as revenue held. Operating margin was 11.8 percent in both 2023 and 2024 and 10.7 percent in 2025, on revenue that barely moved across the three years. Film rental and advertising costs ran at 55.7 percent of admissions revenue in 2023 and 56.8 percent in 2025. In other words, the studios took a slightly larger share of each ticket in the most recent year. That is the moat erosion that matters here, and it does not show up as a lost customer. It shows up as a worse split.

Leverage still shapes the downside. Long-term debt carrying value stood at 1,897.3 million dollars at the end of 2025, against 225.0 million of remaining revolver capacity, and the company ended the first quarter of 2026 with 262 million dollars of cash and a net leverage ratio it reports at 2.6 times. That is manageable in a normal year. The problem is that this industry does not reliably produce normal years, and a company with theatre leases and a debt schedule has very little room to absorb a slate that slips six months.

Now the price. Today's quote is broadly consistent with company-wide operating profit compounding at roughly 9.9 percent a year for five years, calculated on through-the-cycle rather than trough margins. The company grew operating profit in neither of the last two reported years. Getting to that pace requires either box office recovering toward a level the industry has not printed since before the pandemic, or margin expansion in a business where the studio's share of the ticket has been rising. Today's price already sits about 60 percent above the middle of what the asset-value methods reach, and more than double what the peer-multiple method reaches. There is not much left in the trailing record to catch the stock if the 2026 slate underdelivers.

The comparison with AMC is instructive but should not be mistaken for comfort. That peer runs 5.03 billion dollars of revenue at a 1.6 percent operating margin and a negative net margin. Cinemark is unambiguously the better-run business in the same industry. Being the healthiest operator in a structurally flat market is a real achievement and a limited one.

Valuation

Growth is what the price is buying, which is an odd thing to say about a cinema chain. Over a five-year stage at a 7 percent cost of capital, today's quote is broadly consistent with company-wide operating profit compounding at about 9.9 percent a year, measured against through-the-cycle margins rather than any single trough quarter. Hold that figure loosely. It is sensitive enough that a one point change in the cost of capital moves it by roughly nine points, so it is useful as a direction and useless as a target.

The methods disagree with each other more violently here than in most reports, and the reason is worth understanding before any of the numbers are read. Book value per share is 1.70 dollars. When accounting equity is that small relative to a business generating over three billion dollars of revenue, every valuation approach anchored on book produces an unstable answer, and the answers in this set range from a fraction of the price to several times it. Today's price sits roughly 60 percent above the middle of the asset-value methods. The single earnings-power method in the set lands above the price. Today's price is more than double what the peer-multiple method reaches. That spread is not a signal about value. It is a signal that the balance sheet's shape defeats the standard lenses.

What does not defeat them is the income statement, so start there. In 2025 the company produced operating income of 333.2 million dollars on revenue of roughly 3.1 billion, an operating margin of 10.7 percent, against 11.8 percent in each of the two prior years. Trailing earnings run at about 1.30 dollars a share, so the shares change hands at a little over twenty-five times that. For a business with no control over its own product supply, that is a full price and not an absurd one.

Against the closest listed comparison the operational gap is wide. AMC carries 5.03 billion dollars of trailing revenue at a 1.6 percent operating margin and a net margin below zero. Cinemark earns roughly six times that operating margin on a smaller revenue base. Two companies running the same physical business model, one of them able to fund its own maintenance capital and one of them visibly not, is the clearest evidence that operating quality inside this industry still separates outcomes.

The balance sheet reads better than it did and still deserves attention in the close. Long-term debt carrying value fell to 1,897.3 million dollars at the end of 2025 from 2,363.7 million a year earlier, with 225.0 million of revolver capacity undrawn. The quarter ended with 262 million dollars of cash and a net leverage ratio the company reports at 2.6 times. Capital spending ran at 38 million dollars in the quarter, which for a circuit of nearly 500 theatres is maintenance and selective upgrade rather than expansion. The share count tells the same story of consolidation: weighted average diluted shares fell to 134.3 million in 2025 from 154.9 million, mostly because the convertible notes matured rather than because stock was retired in the market.

Catalysts

May 1, 2026 produced the strongest first quarter this company has reported since the pandemic. Revenue rose 18.9 percent to 643.1 million dollars, the net loss narrowed to 6.4 million dollars from 38.9 million, and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation came in at 88.5 million dollars against 36.4 million a year earlier. Admissions contributed 311.4 million dollars and concessions 255.2 million, on attendance of 39.0 million people. First quarters are seasonally the weakest in this business, which makes the direction more informative than the level.

The film calendar is the catalyst that matters, and unusually it is published in advance. The FY2025 10-K names The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, Toy Story 5, Minions 3, Moana, The Mandalorian & Grogu, The Odyssey and Jumanji 3 among films scheduled for release in 2026. Animated franchises and large-format action titles are precisely the content that fills the premium screens carrying the company's better economics. Release dates slip, and a slate that slides from one quarter into the next moves reported results without changing anything about the business.

Two slower-moving items sit behind the calendar. The first is the exclusive theatrical window, which the company names as a determinant of industry success and which is negotiated between studios and exhibitors rather than legislated; any shortening reduces the period in which a theatre is the only place to see a film. The second is the mix shift the company is actively pushing, where alternative content produced 17 percent of global box office in the quarter and premium formats produced 13 percent of worldwide admissions revenue. Both of those are attempts to make revenue less dependent on the studio release schedule, and progress on them is reported every quarter.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

U.S. Reportable Segment / International Reportable Segment (reported)

• AMC (AMC ENTERTAINMENT HOLDINGS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Significant other ​ ​ ​ Significant ​ ​ Total Carrying ​ Quoted prices in ​ observable ​ unobservable ​ ​ Value at ​ active market ​ inputs ​ inputs (In millions) ​ December 31, 2024 ​ (Level 1) ​ (Level 2) ​ (Level 3) Current maturities of corporate borrowings ​ $ 64.2 ​ $ - ​ $ 65.0 ​ $ -…
• FY2025 10-K: ​ ​ ​ ​ Additions ​ Charged ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Balance at ​ Charged ​ (Credited) ​ ​ ​ ​ Beginning of ​ to ​ to Other ​ Balance at (In millions) ​ ​ ​ Period ​ ​ ​ Expenses(1) ​ ​ ​ Accounts(2) ​ ​ ​ End of Period Calendar Year 2025 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Valuation allowance-deferred income tax assets ​ $ 1,711.5 ​ 126.1 ​ 29.0 ​…
• PRKS (United Parks & Resorts Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: 10-K FY false 0001564902 P1Y http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherAssetsNoncurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherAssetsNoncurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccruedLiabilitiesCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccruedLiabilitiesCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherLiabilitiesNoncurrent…
• FY2025 10-K: …Compensation Clawback Policy, effective November 13, 2023, pursuant to NYSE Rule 303A.14 (incorporated by reference to Exhibit 97 to the Registrant's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on February 29, 2024 (File No. 001-35883)) 101* Inline XBRL Document Set for the consolidated financial statements and accompanying…
• MTN (Vail Resorts, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …and events (e.g. weddings and conferences). For such contracts, revenue is allocated to each distinct and separate performance obligation based on its relative standalone selling price. The standalone selling prices are generally based on observable prices charged to customers or estimated based on historical…
• FY2025 10-K: …false 2025 FY 0000812011 http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#OtherLiabilities iso4217:USD xbrli:shares iso4217:USD xbrli:shares xbrli:pure utr:D iso4217:CHF mtn:hour 0000812011 2024-08-01 2025-07-31 0000812011 2025-01-31 0000812011 2025-09-24 0000812011 2025-07-31 0000812011 2024-07-31 0000812011 2023-08-01 2024-07-31…
• MSGE (MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ENTERTAINMENT CORP.)
• FY2025 10-K: Member msge:AdvertisingSalesRepresentationAgreementMember 2022-07-01 2023-06-30 0001952073 msge:SphereEntertainmentMember msge:EdenLoanAgreementMember 2024-07-01 2025-06-30 0001952073 msge:SphereEntertainmentMember us-gaap:NotesPayableOtherPayablesMember msge:EdenLoanAgreementMember 2025-06-30 0001952073…
• FY2025 10-K: …business day of the registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $ 1.41 billion. Number of shares of common stock outstanding as of July 31, 2025: Class A Common Stock par value $0.01 per share - 40,593,104 Class B Common Stock par value $0.01 per share - 6,866,754 Documents…
• BATRA (ATLANTA BRAVES HOLDINGS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …payments to various professional sport clubs, including the Braves. As a result, Braves Holdings terminated the Braves Broadcasting Agreement and recorded a $ 30.1 million contract asset impairment associated with the long-term local broadcasting agreement within the Company's December 31, 2025 consolidated financial…
• FY2025 10-K: …or notes thereto. (a)(3) Exhibits Listed below are the exhibits which are filed as a part of this Report (according to the number assigned to them in Item 601 of Regulation S-K): ​ ​ 2 - Plan of Acquisition, Reorganization, Arrangement, Liquidation or Succession: ​ ​ 2.1 Reorganization Agreement, dated as of June 28,…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.