Entertainment Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Adam Aron has asked the company’s board to freeze his compensation in 2023 following a painful year for the theater chain’s share price.
Mr. Aron said in a string of tweets Tuesday that he has asked the board to freeze his target cash and stock pay in 2023, saying he didn’t “want ‘more’ when our shareholders are hurting.”
The CEO, who received compensation valued at $18.9 million in 2021, said he has also asked more than a dozen senior officers at the company, based in Leawood, Kansas, to forgo raises to their cash salaries in 2023.
“When CEO’s ‘ask,’ execs to their credit usually agree,” he said in a tweet. “I sincerely thank them for that.”
Mr. Aron said that soaring inflation this year will likely lead to companies granting significant salary raises in 2023 and that “no increase for those at the top is the right thing to do.” He signaled in a later tweet that AMC will increase pay for its hourly theater employees next year.
AMC shares are down more than 75% this year, battered by the pandemic’s lingering impact on theater attendance and coming down from a heady 2021, when AMC’s popularity among individual retail traders lifted its shares to an all-time high of $44.61.
Shares closed down 4.7%, or 19 cents, at $3.84 on Wednesday.
Mr. Aron made significant sales of AMC stock during the meme-stock frenzy, filing in November 2021 for the sale of about 1.25 million shares, half of which were sold at an average price of $40.53 million. The CEO said in January that he was done making stock sales, which had netted more than $40 million at that point.
AMC said last week that it would raise $110 million with a significant sale of preferred equity units, known as APEs, which were first issued in August to circumvent a limit on the company’s ability to issue more common stock.
Mr. Aron said the APEs, which had already raised $162 million prior to last week’s capital infusion, have “worked exactly as intended” and allowed AMC to raise cash, buy back debt and explore deals.
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com