Newport Beach-based Sanborn Theatres Inc., a family-owned movie theater operator, has hired an investment bank to explore a possible sale, financing or other options.
Sanborn Theatres said it has New York-based investment bank Christman, Peters & Madden to look at options for the family business.
“Now is an appropriate time for us to consider a number of options for estate planning and other considerations,” said Bruce Sanborn, president of the chain that was started by his grandfather, Arthur Sanborn more than 90 years ago.
Sanborn Theatres owns three theaters in San Luis Obispo and Temecula.
The company was an investor in the movie theaters at The Shops at Anaheim GardenWalk, which filed for bankruptcy in early 2010.
Christman, Peters & Madden worked with Sanborn Theatres on getting out of its investment at the theaters at the mall next to Disneyland.
Sanborn Theatres calls itself the oldest independent theater chain in California, and perhaps the oldest in the West. It competes with the big national chains, Regal Entertainment Group, which owns Regal Cinemas and Edwards Theatres, and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.
“It’s very tough,” Sanborn told the Business Journal in 2008. “Very few companies have made it this long.”
His grandfather, Arthur Sanborn, opened Hollywood Theater in 1918.
The company built Cinemapolis, now called Cinema City in the 1980s in Anaheim Hills.
