Warner to sell three jointly owned cinemas in China

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. (TWX.N), which operates six cinemas in China with local partners, has agreed to sell three to a Chinese company and is in talks to offload the rest, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

Under the agreement, Warner Brothers International Cinemas (WBIC) would sell the three cinemas in Chongqing, Changsha and Nanchang to China Film Group, the spokesman told Reuters.

He declined to give details about the pricing of the deal, which he said still needed government approval. Talks to sell the remaining three WBIC cinemas were proceeding, he added.

Warner Brothers opened its first joint venture cinemas in China five years ago, but decided to pull out of the business after Beijing tightened restrictions in 2005 requiring foreigners to give control to Chinese partners.

The U.S. giant was one of the few big foreign companies to invest in China's cinema industry, where ticket sales jumped 30 percent to 2 billion yuan ($258 million) in 2005.

It also operates other businesses in China, including local language film production, a home video joint venture and consumer products.

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