Imax at JPMorgan Conference: Strategic Growth and Global Expansion

On Wednesday, 14 May 2025, Imax Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) participated in the 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference. During the event, CFO Natasha Fernandez outlined Imax’s strategic position, emphasizing both growth prospects and potential challenges. The company is leveraging its global footprint and robust film slate to drive expansion, while navigating issues like film import restrictions in China.

Key Takeaways

• Record Q1 box office performance and a 40% increase in system installations year-over-year.
• Over 100 system signings to date, with a strong start in China.
• Focus on expanding presence in underpenetrated regions like Japan and the Middle East.
• EBITDA margin at 43% in Q1, with significant improvements in cash flow.
• Increased demand for Imax’s premium viewing format from studios and filmmakers.

Financial Results

Imax reported a record-breaking Q1 box office performance, with system installations increasing by over 40% compared to last year. The company has already signed more than 100 systems, reflecting strong momentum compared to the 130 systems signed for the entire previous year. In China, Imax achieved its fastest start to date, with year-to-date box office revenues reaching $175 million. The EBITDA margin stood at 43% in Q1, and cash flow from operations improved by $18 million year-over-year, totaling $7 million.

Operational Updates

The company is aggressively expanding its footprint, with over 15 titles from the Film for Imax program this year. Domestic opening weekends under this program perform 20% better on average. Imax is also focusing on alternative content such as concert films and documentaries to increase utilization. In Japan, Imax has increased its systems from 30 to over 50, with 11 new systems signed this year. Australia has expanded from two to four locations, with more in the backlog.

Future Outlook

Imax plans to install between 145 and 160 new systems in 2025, with a backlog of over 500 systems. The company is targeting growth in regions like Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Latin America, and the Middle East. Opportunities are also anticipated at the Xiamen Festival, as Imax continues to capitalize on its global scale and premium viewing format.

Q&A Highlights

During the Q&A session, Fernandez highlighted the Film for Imax slate’s potential in Latin America. She also discussed the company’s strategy of leveraging alternative content opportunities, such as concert films and one-off events, to enhance screen utilization and revenue.

Conclusion

For a detailed understanding of Imax’s strategic initiatives and financial performance, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - 53rd Annual JPMorgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference:

David: All right. We’ll get started. Happy to have back from IMAX Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer. Thanks so much for being here.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Thanks for having us, David.

David: All right. Cool. So maybe I’ll start a big picture question. So Rich closed out your Q1 earnings call describing now as a pivot time for IMAX. So why is that the case?

What should investors know about this moment?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I think there’s a few things. So our global footprint, the confirmed slate, the unmatched scale that we have all provide strong growth and visibility into stability and resilience into the future. The trends of Q1 and Q2, they both showed that we have what’s in place to essentially drive the business and have strong momentum moving forward and sustainable momentum. And Q1 we had a record box office. Our system installations were up over 40% year over year.

And our signings to date so far are over 100 systems versus 130 the year before full year. And out of anything, our China box office is off to the fastest start as well. So taking all of that together and then thinking through our film for IMAX slate, the IMAX brand and just the position that we’re in in the industry and the committed backlog that we have. So a pipeline to continue to grow our network as well. All of those together, and then you anchor the year with films like Avatar, which you obviously have lots of visibility into how avatar performs, but then also the visibility into ’26 and beyond into the slate.

David: Got it. Alright, so maybe we’ll go with the slate. When I look at it, IMAX appears to be in a position where it actually has fewer slots available than there’s likely demand. Maybe can you talk to this shifting dynamic now that production is back and full and we see that come through? What’s it practically meant for IMAX to kind of be at the center or be such an important part of theatrical distribution?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Think you said it right. We sit at this unique cross section between exhibitors, filmmakers, and studios, and it’s stronger than it’s ever been before. Mean, have filmmakers who are approaching you now in advance of having studios with them essentially to work on what that release could look like with an IMAX release using our technology, cameras, but also just having their film shown in the IMAX network. And IMAX is essentially the most premium viewing format that you could experience, and it’s the scale of our network as well. Being in almost 90 countries and 1,700 plus locations globally, it truly is unmatched from that global scale.

And as you sit back and think about the slate and how IMAX can contribute to a film, we’ve seen that IMAX contributes to film’s success. Mean, with a limited number of weeks, it makes it like a hot commodity essentially as well. And it shows that whatever we pick to play in the IMAX locations, it’s ones we’ve thought through. We’ve thought through with respect to the type of content and whether that would be a film that makes sense to show in IMAX, we believe in the content as well in the filmmakers. And so studios are coming even earlier to us to lock in titles.

We’ve actually never been, and I’m sure we’ve talked about it before, we’ve never been in this position before where we have such good visibility into future years. I’d say a year ago, if we were doing the budget, you would have walked into a year and you would not know many of the titles for a year. But then walking into this year, we knew most of the films slate for 2025, but we also know a lot of the films slate for ’26, and we have some for ’27, ’20 ’8, ’20 ’9. And so just working through a period where we actually are having studios come earlier so that they lock in those weeks and don’t miss out on having an IMAX run. And I think that’s great.

That’s great for us and our business, but it provides the stability and the visibility into the model as well. And directors also wanna use the cameras, so that means they’re coming earlier as well when the filmmakers If they’re to use the cameras, then that’s like a year or two out before the film’s actually released that they’re gonna wanna use our cameras, contract with us, work on what does that look like. Emissions getting released this week. It’s premiering right now in Cannes, that’s where Rich is right now and doing the release over there. And we’ve been working with Tom Cruise for quite some time on this film since essentially when 2023 when the last mission happened.

David: Which did not have an

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Which, well, had a really limited run, which is why we were working so closely together with Whether

David: came on, yeah.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Exactly. And then of course exhibitors are recognizing that and so coming to the table and more signings, which is why we’re at over 100 so far year to date.

David: And I’m curious, I used to think about IMAX a few years ago and you would do a release and it was fully exclusive. You have seen a little bit more lately, at least domestically, you’ll be showing two films at once, That seems to be a product a little bit of recent years, maybe increased leverage. Can you speak to that?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah. There’s a lot more opportunity out there more so because, one, if we didn’t commit to one film and they missed out on getting that commitment, then they really wanna get their film into our into our locations. And so we figure out how can we how can we do that. Right? How can we do that in the right way with honoring our relationships and our partnerships?

But you can. Like, you think about this week, Final Destination is coming out. It’s a Warner title, and Sinners is doing amazing. And Sinners has the opportunity to come back in our film location, so we are re releasing. Or bringing it back in our film location starting tomorrow.

But it’s both Warner properties, so we’re able to kind of mix those up and make sure that we offer the consumer what they want, right? And then I do feel like everybody is working towards a partnership of wanting to maximize box office. And so making sure that the exhibitors are healthy and getting more box office to them as well. And so we’re all working together. So can you show an animation during the day, and then you’ve seen we’ve shown a different show at the prime time and then you do a late show of something different.

And so there’s lots of opportunities there and that’s a new phenomenon that’s kind of happened in the past year. I’d say that we’re getting a lot more opportunity to make those programming choices. And then we make a lot of different programming choices internationally too because local language titles come out all the time and local language sometimes plays better in those international local home markets, right?

David: Got it. You noted IMAX cameras. Certainly seems like you have very strong buy in from U. S.-based studios and filmmakers on that. Can you just remind us the kind of indexing lift you typically see for digital, but I’m also curious for film cameras?

And then what’s the opportunity to roll this out more kind of in your China or rest of world markets?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, there’s a lot of filmmakers coming to the table. Like this year we have a record film for IMAX program with combined Hollywood and local language well over 15 titles this year. And we already have a slew of titles locked in for next year with our cameras. I mean, we’ve seen on domestic opening weekends that we perform 20% higher on those opening weekends under the Film for IMAX program. And so that’s on 1% of the screens to perform 20% higher.

And I can give you a really recent example, Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts, we did 11.3% on the opening weekend on 1% of the screens. A historical Marvel title might have gotten us eight, max 9% of a market share on opening weekend. So I think that you can immediately see that as a prime example. But then think about the film cameras.

I mean, film cameras, the two week run that we did for centers, we did 20% on the two week run. I mean, Dune, we did a 20% run on that as well. Oppenheimer, we did over 20%. And so thinking through film is just a unique nature

David: of the the signaling to the fan base, right? What is it about film that brings people in?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I mean, it is a unique Hopefully you’ve seen the film locations, but the film, the aspect ratio, the quality of it, it is different. The look and the feel is different. It’s unique. It’s the fear of missing out or it’s the lack of demand, so it creates this whole pull on wanting to experience that as well. But the filmmaker has been really intentional in using film, and it is a lot of work to do a film, to do content in film.

And so they’ve put a lot of effort into that as well, so you can see it through.

David: Right, some natural constraint, guess. Not every filmmaker is gonna do it. Think you have one camera or two cameras?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: No, no, we have four cameras.

David: Four film cameras.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I think we have eight in total, but like newer sort of that we’re working through. So yeah, there’s limitations there. But on the digital side, there’s no limitation on the number of cameras for digital.

David: Okay. We talked to the Hollywood slate a little bit, but increasingly it’s important to highlight the local language piece of this. Your typical U. S. Investor, however, and you’ve heard me even talk about this sometime, has much less familiarity with foreign titles.

The box office cadence had to handicap the pipeline. What’s a helpful framework to better understand this without having to kind of deep dive some of those local titles?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, I mean obviously predicting local titles is a lot harder. But there’s a lot of demand. I mean what we’ve seen, if you think about a handful of years ago, we were single digits with respect to how much local language was a contributor to our box office. Now we’re closer to 15% to 20% of our box office is local language titles. And then I think when you look at local language, you got to look in kind of two areas.

One would be China and then the rest of world. So China, we’ve been doing local language in China for decades. And it’s always been a contributor in the China market. Historically, it’s probably been about fifty-fifty with respect to local language and then Hollywood in China. I mean, this year though, obviously it’s trending a lot more towards local language with the success of Chinese New Year.

But I think China specifically works on holiday periods. So they have several holiday periods and you think through, there will always be local language programmed into those holiday periods. So Chinese New Year is their biggest holiday period. There’s the May holiday, the summer holiday, and then the October. And so those are the periods when they program heavy local language, and that’s when the local directors are all focused to put their big budget titles in there because there’s a longer window for them, and so they’re wanting to market it then.

And then the Hollywood comes in and fills in all the shoulders in China. And then the rest of the world, I mean, there’s markets like Japan is probably your best playbook at looking at local language. Japanese anime and other local Japanese titles are starting to increase well, and even bringing out titles from the vaults, like twenty five year old titles and playing those too. I think there’s a lot of opportunity because the demand for local language is good. I mean, you look at where we’re going, we have expanded into new markets, like doing Arabic titles.

We’ve done a Vietnamese title this year as well. We’ve you know, we probably do at least 10 or 11 different countries at this point of different titles. And France is actually a really good region too. So when you’re stepping back and thinking about visibility, I’d say we were sub 10% before single digits, and now we’re closer to 20% of our box office. So you’re looking at total box office and thinking about how are we growing that area and that’s essentially what we’re focused on is growing it.

Rest of world box office used to be essentially de minimis and now it’s low teens of a contributor to our business model. So can start to see how that can easily expand out, especially as it’s like a cycle, right? The more local language you do is the more exhibitors are coming to the table in those local countries and being able and wanting to have an IMAX screen because now we’re giving them all the content they want, local language coupled with Hollywood.

David: Got it. You touched upon China a little bit, certainly been a real bright spot to date coming off a softer 2024. Can we talk about the recent history of the market? You have have great momentum there now. How do we think about that extending for the rest of ’25 and next year?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I mean, China definitely has been a bright spot this year. We’re already, I think year to date, at $175,000,000 in box office. Full year $24,199,000,000. So you can already see how much progress we’ve made this year. But it’s not over.

There’s a lot still coming. I mean, the summer period has a few titles coming in there, local titles that we believe are coming, including Writer’s Odyssey two. There’s one called Dongji Island, and then there’s a title called Maiden Yiwu. I’m sure you don’t know any of those. Maiden Yiwu, there’s a part one and part two this year.

But they’re bigger budget titles from a local language perspective. But then also there’s all of this Hollywood content coming into China too. So there’s some titles in Hollywood titles that’ll do really well in China. We think Mission will do well, obviously. Tom Cruise has an IP over there and well known.

But obviously Avatar, we have experience of knowing. Avatar has historically done for us $50,000,000 in China. And as we start to even penetrate more of the market, you think in growing that as well. But then Zootopia has a really strong IP in China. Disney over there in China actually has an area of the park dedicated to Zootopia too.

David: Zootopia and Toy Story, right? Yeah,

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: yeah. Which Toy Story is next year, so that’s another one. But then there’s Jurassic as well. And F1 actually might do pretty well. I think they’re looking at even doing a race over in China, so that would create some more IP over there.

But I think there’s a lot of opportunity actually at the Xiamen Festival next week. I think they’re gonna announce some more of the local titles. But even if you look at Hollywood, some of the Hollywood titles have the ability to do really well. We’ve had some good successes last year with Alien Romulus and Deadpool. But then even as you look this year with all of those titles coming up, I think there’s gonna be some good success.

We actually indexed about 27% on Thunderbolts in China, which that’s a really strong indexing for us to be on 1% of the screens and index 27%. And Thunderbolts, I think for an unknown IP and unknown characters actually did pretty well better than their expectations in China.

David: So that’s important to note, right? Because I think there’s been some concern about Marvel in China in particular. But for you, if the indexing is so high, then it’s almost a natural

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: kind

David: of

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: yeah.

David: Maybe this question made more sense last week, but we saw the China Film Administration’s data policy to moderately reduce film imports. Obviously you seem fairly confident that’s not gonna apply to your type of movies. What’s like the kind of the latest that’s been approved and what are you like it sounds like Daniel on the ground over there is telling you there’s nothing to worry about.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, Daniel, our CEO in China, is well ingrained into the industry over there. And I think we’ve heard a lot of titles even get announced since then. I mean Thunderbolts was approved before that announcement, the moderately reduced announcement. But from our view, it’s business as usual in China. Essentially, since that announcement, moderately reduced, you’ve had Accountant two get approved, Lilo and Stitch, you’ve had How to Train Your Dragon.

I think there’s one more. Jen, do you know? Mission and Mission f one, Superman and Jurassic, I think have all been submitted in, and I think you’ll probably hear on Mission pretty soon. But essentially every title that has been submitted in since that moderately reduced has been approved. So we haven’t heard anything to the contrary.

And the reality is is with a moderately reduced, it’s the big titles that’ll still be accepted in. Essentially, you’re gonna take out the titles that would have not really done any business in China anyways and really create noise in that ecosystem of making almost like the narrative of Hollywood doesn’t work. Right? Because if you submit everything and not every title works in China, the China consumer is different, but also even domestically not every title works, right? And so there’s no reason to put marketing behind it and really push a title if you know it’s not going to reach the consumer.

So in this case, you’re being more thoughtful about what’s going go in. I mean the reality is Avatar will go through, always has been approved, Zootopia. So the titles that are on the IMAX slate, we feel very confident will make it through.

David: Maybe just sticking on political side, any other tariff risk to consider whether it’s equipment growing cross border, of the tariff thing that came up a couple weeks ago and then went away. Let’s also keep in mind you’re a Canadian corporation, right? So there’s that.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I think that’s the right point is that we’re a Canadian company. And we are a global company. The reality is we have a global supply chain and we work with many suppliers from around the world and we do our manufacturing in Canada and then we ship out to where we need to for the projector. And I think the reality is we so far have not seen any material impact on the way that we’ve done our business or any of the taxes and tariffs from that perspective. And at this point in time, don’t expect any.

Of course, it’s always a risk in the environment that we’re in, but I don’t think as at this point in time we see anything that would cause a material impact on us.

David: Got it. So IMAX has guided to 145 to 160 installs in 2025. I think year to date signings are also nicely outpacing the prior year. So what’s the common theme or need among exhibitors driving this trend? And also, do you kind of expect you can keep raising the bar on installs?

Or is there sort of like a practical limit to what you would want or can execute in a year?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I mean the reality, we have a really great team to start with, but the reality is there really is no limit to us being able to install out our backlog for instance. We need a few weeks of lead time and be able to get everything all manufactured, put together and shipped out. But the reality is as if all the exhibitors in our pipeline, we have over 500 systems in the backlog right now, if they all came to the table, we’d figure out a way to get that done. We can ebb and flow our workforce up and down as well. So I think that that’s helpful so that we’re not carrying all those costs all the time.

And then part of the install cadence is you can see that we are continuing to increase our install guidance each year and coming out to I’m not sure you’ll ever hit a point where that’s just the maximum. I think every year is going be a give and take in that. You might have some years where we have really large exhibitors that come to the table and say we want a whole slew of systems upgraded in that year. And then you could end up upgrading those all at the same time or they might go over a certain amount of time. But the one thing you are seeing is, I mean, we’re already, I mentioned we were 40% higher on Q1 from installations.

You are seeing a little bit of the cadence move up slightly just from the fact that some of the exhibitors just want to get in and get their IMAX screens already before the film for IMAX slate hit, right? And so I think that’s part of it. But we’ll still always be a back end heavy type of installation, especially as you look towards Avatar. The main event of the year is definitely Avatar, and that’s where most exhibitors will be focused on getting installed for. And then after Avatar, I mean, ’26 is huge, right?

So between a top tier Marvel with Avengers and Star Wars and Dune and of course, a Nolan title, Odyssey, It’s a Toy Story. It’s a really big year next year too.

David: And you brought up upgrades, right? And I don’t know you announced a big one this year with AMC. Just can you refresh us like for AMC, how old are those theaters that they’re now upgrading? I mean, and I get that these things might be chunky and kind of come up from time to time, but I imagine as you get bigger, right, that upgradeable base just keeps kind of growing and growing.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: It does. I mean, I think they all have different timing in that each year you’re installing locations and then they expire ten to twelve years out from there. So they all have their individual expirations. But you can sign for the upgrade now and then you have it scheduled out in your backlog. So doing a certain number of installations each year under the agreement essentially is sort of the goal so that we everybody is timed out and planned accordingly looking at how do you allocate your capital and do all of those pieces.

So I think there’s years where you’ll see a slew. I mean, we talked about the AMC one in the press release, but I think if you look at what is the realm of the possible because ideally you’re trying to get upgraded for the right titles and be able to capture that. For instance, if you had installed your IMAX system at the beginning of this year or during Q1, you’re about to capitalize on the full rest of the year, including the film for IMAX slate and ending with Avatar, it’s very likely you’re recouping most of your costs just even in year one as opposed to waiting for two to three years, right? And so I think it’s a really good opportunity to do that. There’s some really good markets that we’re excited about too in that region.

David: You’ve highlighted previously rest of world as the most underpenetrated region for IMAX. Can you frame the opportunity here? What are the kind of core markets with high per screen averages where you see a lot of room for growth? Any kind of challenges to that rollout to consider?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, I mean from an installation perspective, I think we’ve got a lot of opportunity in the rest of the world. Our zones are about 3,600 right now, and the last time we did a zoning analysis was a couple of years ago. But we’re only at just over 1,700 screens, so we’re less than half penetrated. But then when you look at that rest of world market, we only have about 15 like 500 locations, but we have 1,500 zones. So we have a lot of opportunity in that rest of world region.

I mean, we’re excited about regions like Japan, obviously. Japan, we I think we’ve moved from like 30 some odd systems a handful of years ago to now well over 50 and then some in backlog still. And we’ve had already 11 signings year to date in Japan and our max our high record high for signings in Japan in a year has been 12 before. So you can see a lot of momentum there, and that goes back to the local language piece too where Slayer null Castle is getting released this year. Demon Slayer, that IP, was historically the highest grossing title before in Japan.

So the second one’s coming out and is expected to do really well. Another area is Australia. Last year, I think we had two locations as of the beginning of last year, and then we’ve signed another seven systems in Australia since then over the past year. And then we have another so I think we’ve doubled we’re now at four open in Australia with another handful in backlog as well. So seeing how you can continue to grow those regions.

France, we’ve done the same thing. We’ve expanded that significantly in the past few years. And then Germany as well. But I think there’s a lot of still a lot of opportunity. We have some traction going on in Latin America as well.

North America still has a lot of opportunity. I mean, last year, I think we signed deals with eight new exhibitors, which you wouldn’t expect North America has a lot more, but it does have a lot of opportunity, particularly in certain areas of the country too, right? And then Middle East is another opportunity that we’ve been focused on. I think we signed a deal with an exhibitor called MUBI last year for four systems, and we’re probably only 20% penetrated, I think, over there. So a lot of opportunity in The Middle East, particularly in Saudi.

And then just kind of refocusing on how we can continue to grow that. The per serene averages are really high. I mean, Japan is almost 2,000,000. Most of Europe is over a million. U.

S. Is over a million for us. Thinking through how can you continue to penetrate into those markets and really capture that box office opportunity. The one thing is our market share has been increasing too, right? Like we’ve already we had a really strong Q1 market share and it’s hitting record levels.

And I think that’s where the opportunity still lies because of the consumer demand too.

David: I got to ask on the LATAM traction comment because that’s a region where Rich has kind of in the past said it’s tough to kind of install. Did something change there?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: I think you’re getting a lot of opportunity because of the film for IMAX late and then our ability to build out those relationships with those local studios. So because we’re able to now have relationships with local studios, give local language content, but then having a film for IMAX late does make a difference. I mean, I talked about the indexing before. If the IMAX screens are taking 20% of the business, then how could you not want to make sure that you’re capturing some of that business? And I think that’s where it is.

Also part of that region had to do with taxes and tariffs as well. And so we’ve been working through that area too. Like a lot of those regions have different tax regimes just naturally, right? So very high tax regimes. And so working through how could we accomplish getting a system in where it could be affordable to the exhibitor as well.

David: Maybe bringing it all together, so the end goal of IMAX cameras, your relationships with filmmakers, greater installs, right, In theory and execution we’ve seen higher indexing. You’ve always highlighted the margin benefit as this flows through to your content solutions business. Can you speak a bit to the operating leverage dynamic here? Q1, it stood out especially, but just in general.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yes, mean, EBITDA margin was 43% in Q1. I think we have the ability we’ve analyzed it and we’ve thought through it, but you can see it in our past performance as well. When you hit those box office levels of over $250,000,000 the incrementality in our model starts to kick in. We have a really high correlation between box office performance flowing through to EBITDA margin. And so we’ve actually seen that about 85%, there’s an 85% flow through from box office levels when they’re over $250,000,000 coming down to the bottom line and really coming through your film remastering, so your box office from studios, and then your JVs, so your box office from those theaters that are under joint revenue sharing arrangements.

And the costs are relatively fixed, right? So you don’t have a lot more marketing or a lot more you don’t have any more depreciation. Depreciation is fixed on your leases. So realistically, most of the box office that you earn in excess of the two fifty flows to that bottom line.

David: Got it. Looking at your free cash flow, working capital has been a bit of a drag in the post pandemic years. That drag seems to be easing somewhat. Can you just talk about what’s been the dynamic coming out of say 2021? How should we think about the prospect of better conversion ahead?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, I mean, in Q1, our cash flow from ops was $7,000,000 I think it was an $18,000,000 improvement year over year. And then I think even last year, 2024, our cash from ops was $71,000,000 which was a significant improvement over 2023. So you’re seeing that dynamic shift post pandemic that we’ve been able to improve our cash flow position. And that’s coupled with the fact that exhibitors are also becoming healthier too, right? Because the healthier the exhibitors get, then our cash also gets stronger as well.

And because we extended payment terms during the pandemic and so on, but we’ve been collecting on a regular basis now and really seeing that the cash is flowing through. But the other part is that we’ve been making a lot of effort on focusing on keeping costs sort of stable and at really efficient levels and working through those pieces too. So I think there’s lots of opportunity to continue to see improvement on that free cash flow conversion. I mean pre pandemic, I think we’re at 50% free cash flow conversion to EBITDA to free cash flow on excluding growth CapEx. And I can’t like as you look through the model, it’s very easy to see how you can get there again.

David: Okay. Maybe sticking on capital allocation for a second, just broadly discuss the approach to the buyback. You guys have been pretty opportunistic, right, I think is fair to say. And then I don’t know if you were now less I could say we’re less than a year out on your convert maturities. So just any early thoughts on how you might be thinking about that?

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yes, I mean, we are opportunistic on share buybacks. I think we think through that and part of that right now, even in the capital allocation sort of perspective in my view is thinking through using that capital for buybacks and then also having the convert hit into current status right now, it’s due in April 26, and then the revolver is there. And so working through the dynamics of all three pieces, I mean, the revolver has the ability it’s fairly undrawn, so you have the ability to repay all of the notes if I wanted to based on that. Or we could go out and do another convert if it’s the right pricing to make sure that it makes sense from a shareholder perspective as well because my whole goal in thinking through the convert is making sure we never cause dilution on the stock from perspective and really doing the right offering that makes the most sense and at the right rates. And I think that there’s a lot of opportunity.

We have in fact been doing IMAX China has been doing share repurchases in China. So those are actually all posted in public, but those have been happening this quarter already. So some of the capital has been going there to repurchase those shares.

David: Got it. I want to just go back a little bit to some of your content. Maybe separate to local language, you have improved utilization through alternative content. I guess the part that I’m most interested in is on some of those films you’ve been able to gain attractive economics. Blue Angels is a great example of that.

How would you frame the opportunity kind of for films like this? And then as a follow on, we could also touch upon your events or some of your live Q and A businesses.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, I think it’s an area that’s sort of under the radar right now, but it is adding to our box office and to our utilization. I mean, we’ve looked through it and if you increase utilization by one point, it would equal about 75 to 100,000,000 a box office. So of course, it’s one of our focuses is creating higher utilization on the screens. And how do you do that? You add in all these concert films, one off.

I mean, I think last week we did a Fortnite event last week on a one show. We’ve done Le Clasique in France, so a soccer event across a handful of locations. So looking at what all those opportunities are to essentially increase utilization, which is why you’re seeing a greater mix in sort of our revenue lines in that maybe the direct content line has a certain take rate, but then you’re seeing the other content solutions line start to increase and that’s where you know, we’ve been seeing a mix of content coming through. And there’s always opportunities, like you’re working with streamers who wanna launch off a new series, essentially. We’ve done that a few times with Amazon or Doc, for instance, using it as a launch platform.

And you’re right. So the Blue Angels, but we also have a few other docs in the pipeline, a storm one very similar to Twisters called Stormbound, an elephant one following the elephants, through China as well. So there’s a few more coming down the pipeline that our goal is to follow the model that we established with Blue Angels, where you do a commercial release, you sell the downstream rights, and then you do an institutional release as well, being able to capture box office and revenue through multiple sources on the same content.

David: And the institutional release on Blue Angels wasn’t at the same time as the

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: commercial release? It just released this past quarter.

David: Got it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maybe, you know, we’re under two minutes, we’ll win with a big picture one.

So we saw you outperform the industry in Q1, just given the global platform, the strong China results. Maybe just close us out with your view on kind of how IMAX has evolved to, I guess, build a more stable kind of revenue model.

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: Yeah, I mean, it’s a great time to be in the IMAX business. We have a confirmed slate in front of us with more visibility than we’ve ever had. We have a really strong pipeline of locations to install with over 500 locations and still signing more systems as we speak. We’re still signing systems. And our brand, I mean the consumer behavior and our market share shows you that where we’ve kind of grown and increased our position in the industry is just our brand is so strong that it continues to gain more market share and continues to then lead towards that positive effect of having more signings and increasing our locations and then signing more content to our slate.

I mean, the reality of having such good visibility into future years is a new phenomenon, and it’s something that I think will definitely will continue just knowing that there’s only fifty two weeks in a year. And so if you want an IMAX run, you’ve got to sign that up. And the more IMAX runs that are signed up leads to more locations, and you continue that growth dynamic. And so all of that in the end leads to your incrementality in the model and strong EBITDA margins and returns.

David: All right, great way to close it out. Natasha, thanks for being Thanks,

Natasha Fernandez, Chief Financial Officer, IMAX: David.

David: Thank you.

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