Farah Golant freezes Everyman expansion after Scrimgeour exit
Everyman put Farah Golant in charge as interim chief executive after Alex Scrimgeour resigned with immediate effect, and she froze the expansion programme on day one. For a chain with 49 sites, that is not a cosmetic change; it is a pause button on a business that has leaned on new openings while the numbers kept sliding.
Everyman has not made a pre-tax profit since 2019, has run up more than £56m in pre-tax losses over the last six years and carries £21.6m of debt. It issued a profit warning in early December, then watched its share price recover only partly, rising 24% to 36p since the start of the year after Golant’s appointment and the change in direction.
Scrimgeour’s December exit
Alex Scrimgeour left at the end of December, and the company moved the same day to name Golant interim chief executive. She had joined the board in September, so the handover came from inside the company rather than through a drawn-out search, which usually buys time but not necessarily confidence.
That speed matters because Everyman had already signalled trouble. The profit warning in early December landed before the leadership change, turning the departure into more than a personnel story. It became a statement that the old playbook was not working.
49 sites, £21.6m debt
Everyman now has 49 sites, but the bigger footprint has not translated into profit. It booked more than £6m in impairment charges over the last three years, and its share price has been down almost 80% over the last five years, a collapse that says the market has been pricing in strain for some time.
The company’s growth story once helped hide the weakness underneath. It went from a single venue in Hampstead in London to a national player, and rivals such as Odeon and Vue have since launched premium concepts based on Everyman’s formula. That leaves the chain fighting in a market where its own idea is no longer unique.
David Hancock on competition
David Hancock, chief analyst for media and entertainment at Omdia, cut through the polite version of events: “Somewhere along the way Everyman lost its edge.” He added, “I don’t think it is just about the challenges faced by all the players in the market.” His third line was the most direct: “There is more competition than ever before.”
The pressure is not just competitive. Everyman has also faced wider industry strain from Covid shutdowns, Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, and an uneven pipeline of hits, while it opened a site at The Whiteley in west London last August. The combination helped keep the chain visible, but it did not fix the balance sheet.
Golant’s own line in April — “resetting to drive growth” — now reads like the operating brief. Freezing expansion and focusing on paying down debt is the sensible move for a chain that needs breathing room more than another opening.
