What happened
Another day, another big decline in share price for Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) stock. After trading as much as 20% higher earlier in the day, shares of the MoviePass owner were trading down 48% as of 11:30 a.m. EDT.
So, as you can imagine, there's both good and bad news to report today.
Will MoviePass survive? Fans hope so, as should the film industry. But Helios stock keeps going down. Image source: Getty Images.
So what
The good news is that in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this morning, Helios confirms that it has paid back the entire $6.2 million amount of the IOU it took out from Hudson Bay last week. Given that Helios got this loan because it needed cash to pay the movie theaters for the tickets its subscribers have been buying, and given that it wasn't obligated to pay back the final tranche of this loan until Aug. 5, investors (and moviegoers) can infer from the early repayment that MoviePass once again has enough cash in the bank to keep its business running -- at least for now.
The bad news is that in a separate SEC filing, where it might have been expected to elaborate on the health of its MoviePass business (or perhaps announce a big stock offering to fill its coffers with even more cash), Helios instead issued a press release announcing that:
- 49% of MoviePass subscribers are seeing movies they wouldn't normally see in theaters
- 47% of MoviePass subscribers are recommending more movies to friends
- 70% of MoviePass subscribers state that they somewhat or strongly agree that they are still more likely to see a film despite a low Rotten Tomatoes score
It also said that 30.8% of MoviePass members saw the movie Ocean's 8, an attendance rate six times larger than that of the U.S. moviegoing population at large.
That's all great to hear, and these are good arguments in favor of why the film industry might want to keep MoviePass around, support it and not oppose it, and make an effort to prevent it from going under -- but none of the above says much about Helios and Matheson's ability to turn profitable in the near future.
Now what
Now here's the ugly news: With MoviePass' viability still in question, investors have sold off the stock to sub-$1 levels once again. The company's Hail Mary move to reverse-split its stock 250-for-1 last week notwithstanding, MoviePass stock is once again in danger of being delisted by Nasdaq.
That wouldn't make the stock disappear, mind you, but it wouldn't be good news for its stock price either, which could very likely tumble further in the event of a delisting and a move to the over-the-counter market.
