Picturehouse founder in talks to buy back chain from Cineworld - Sky News

(Reuters) -Picturehouse founder Lyn Goleby has held talks with London-based Vue International, a reported bidder for Cineworld, about buying back the chain that was sold to the bankrupt cinema operator in 2012, Sky News said on Tuesday.

Cineworld, the world's second-largest cinema chain operator, is currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has failed to find a buyer for the whole company.

Sky News last month reported that Vue was among the bidders for Cineworld assets.

On Tuesday, it said the sale of cinema chain Picturehouse could aid Vue from a competition perspective given its status as one of Britain's biggest cinema operators.

Cineworld and Vue declined to comment on the Sky report.

Goleby, who co-founded Picturehouse Cinemas in 1989, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through networking platform LinkedIn.

Along with exploring a sale, Cineworld is also looking at a possible plan of reorganisation to fix its debt-ridden balance sheet, but neither exit path would see shareholders recover their equity interest.

The company, which owns Regal in the United States, bought UK-based independent movie theatre operator Picturehouse for 47.3 million pounds ($56.71 million) in 2012.

It was unclear on Tuesday whether Goleby and Vue had reached any form of agreement about the terms of a collaboration, the report said.

($1 = 0.8341 pounds)

(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)