U.S. court denies AMCs request for speedier stock conversion

(Reuters) – A U.S. court on Wednesday denied AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc‘s request to lift a status quo order, which was necessary to proceed with the conversion of the company’s preferred stock into common shares.

“The parties offer no good cause to lift the status quo order,” Delaware Chancery Court judge Morgan Zurn wrote in the ruling.

AMCs shares rose 13.4% in premarket trading on Thursday, while preferred APE stock dropped 10.5%.

AMC investors had sued the company accusing it and several of its directors of violating a law by creating the preferred shares in an attempt to “eviscerate” the voting power of common stockholders who had not supported the issuing of new shares.

On Monday, AMC said it had entered into a binding settlement with some investors and that it would ask a judge to lift a related status quo order, in order to complete the stock conversion.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)