Amid cash troubles, MoviePass launches peak pricing
Movie subscription service MoviePass launched “peak pricing” on Thursday. In an email to subscribers, the company said that peak pricing will go into effect when there is a high demand for a movie or a showtime. “You may be asked to pay a small additional fee depending on the level of demand. You can avoid the surcharge by selecting a different showtime or movie,” MoviePass wrote in its email. The company said it would also be introducing “Peak Pass” in the next few weeks, which would allow users to waive one peak fee per month. Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., the parent company of MoviePass, disclosed in a June filing that it had just $18.5 million available cash at the end of May. Since then, the company has made a number of cash-raising moves, including proposing increasing the number of its shares of common stock to 2 billion from 500 million, entering an agreement to issue 20,500 shares of preferred stock and $164 million in convertible notes and filing a shelf registration statement to raise $1.2 billion. Helios and Matheson shares have tumbled 96.9% so far this year. The S&P 500 has risen 2.2%.