Workers to take over at Thurso’s Merlin cinema firm
The company behind the most northerly cinema on the British mainland is to transfer ownership to its staff.
Merlin Cinemas operates a diverse range of cinemas and restaurants across the country, including at Thurso.
Now the Westcountry-based independent operator has announced plans to soon become an Employee Ownership Trust.
The company says that the move will protect the interests of its 320 staff who work from Thurso to Penzance at the tip of Cornwall.
The existing managing director, Geoff Greaves, will stay on in a new role while the current senior management team, based mainly in Redruth, Cornwall, will not change, it stated.
Craig May, currently a co-director, who has worked for the company for almost 20 years, will now become managing director, while Daisy Wren and Chris Lawrence, both experienced and long-serving senior management employees, will be newly appointed as directors.
Company founder Mr Greaves said: “This is a fantastic and exciting route to protect the company and our ethos, and to reward all those people who together have been part of the success in bringing the ‘magic of the movies’ to so many people around the UK.
“I have always believed that the best place to see a film is at the cinema, it’s memorable and sociable, and without their own cinema locally people just don’t go very often, which is why I believe so much in cinema being local and engaged in the community.”
The company specialises in operating rural and coastal cinemas, mainly in towns where without the Merlin venue there would be no local cinema. With an eclectic chain of venues, including converted historic buildings and reopened old traditional cinemas, they also operate a multi-screen cinema and live theatre in the Regal at Redruth.
In Penzance, where they already run the popular Savoy Cinema, they are also currently converting the long closed 1930s Art Deco Ritz Cinema into a multi-entertainment venue, which is due to open later this year.
The company was started at the Savoy in 1990, which was then a run-down single-screen cinema, and it has since grown to 20 sites and over 60 screens across the country.
