Business to Become a 50/50 Joint Venture Between Remaining Partners

Burbank, CA - Warner Bros. International Cinemas (WBIC) and Village Cinemas, who jointly own 90% of Warner Village Cinemas, S.p.A., in Italy, will purchase the remaining 10% of the venture currently held by Focus Partnership. With the transaction completed today, WBIC and Village Cinemas each own 50% of the business.

“Warner Village Cinemas has been a wonderful experience,” said Paolo Marussig, founder of Focus Partnership. “It allowed me to marry my two greatest passions in professional life: real estate and cinema. Thanks to Village and Warner I dove deep into the cinema industry realm, yet always working with ‘bricks and mortar’ - I learned all the laws of the cinema business from the box office point of view, where admissions and public satisfaction are what count.”

“Warner Village Cinemas is the number one cinema circuit in Italy, drawing 10 million admissions yearly,” said Ettore Rosboch, President, Focus Partnership. “With the business firmly established, it’s time for us to move on and face new exciting challenges in real estate development projects.”

“Establishing what has become the largest cinema circuit in Italy with Warner and Village was an ambitious undertaking,” said Lilia Smecchia, co-founder of Focus Partnership. “Even though we now are heading in different directions, we look forward to the opportunity of working with Warner Village Cinemas in the future.”

Laura Blanco, an early partner in Focus, added: "It's been exciting and a great privilege to be pioneers of the multiplex industry in Italy together with Warner and Village, blending top International expertise with Italian wits: the formula proved to be successful!"

“While I am sad that our Focus partners have moved on to new business endeavours, I am also very happy that the joint venture will continue to work with Focus in relation to many of the exciting development opportunities which the joint venture has before us,” said Robert Kirby, Chairman, Village Roadshow. “Ten years of genuine friendship and goodwill will continue and the vision and contribution of the Focus partners to the pioneering of multiplex cinemas in Italy will live on for generations to come.”

“With Focus, we were able to build a thriving and robust Italian exhibition business,” said Millard Ochs, President, Warner Bros. International Cinemas. “We’ll continue to operate and expand our Italian cinema business and look forward to being a vital part of this exciting market.”

Warner Village Cinemas currently operates 14 cinemas in Italy, with a total of 146 screens and more than 33,000 seats. Warner Bros. International Cinemas provides a true state-of-the-art movie experience to audiences in five key overseas territories (Japan, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, China) with more than 70 multiplex cinemas and more than 650 screens internationally, as well as manages 21 theatres with 123 screens in the U.S.