Cinemex started with a college business plan. Adolfo Fastlicht, Miguel Angel Dávila Guzmán and Matthew Heyman speculated that Mexico was ready for larger movie theaters. When the regulations were lifted with the new Cinematography Law passed in Mexico in 1992, Adolfo Fastlicht and Miguel Angel Dávila decided that Mexico City offered a market for a high-end chain of theaters. In 1994, they secured $21.5m in equity financing from JPMorgan Partners and a partnership of the Bluhm family of Chicago, CMex Investors.and some Mexican former politicians The deal is generally acknowledged to be the largest venture capital start-up in Mexican history. Cinemex's first theater was Cinemex Altavista and it opened on August 2, 1995; the second was Unicornio Land opened in September 23, 1996, soon followed by Cinemex Santa Fe, the company's flagship, in October and Cinemex Manacar on January, 1997. That same year saw the opening of Cinemex Los Reyes and Cinemex Loreto. In June 2002Oaktree Capital Management acquired Cinemex for $250 million. Two years later, it was sold to a partnership of The Carlyle Group, Bain Capital and Spectrum. In 2013, Cinemex began to offer MX4D screens at selected locations. In February 2013, Cinemex announced its intent to acquire the Mexican operations of U.S. cinema chainCinemark. The sale was approved by regulators in November. In August 2013, Cinemex reached a 10-year agreement to exclusively use RealD equipment at all of its cinemas. In 2015, Cinemex and competitor Cinépolis were both fined by the Instituto Nacional Electoral for defying an order to cease screening political advertising from the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico. The party was also fined. In 2015, Cinemex announced plans to expand into the United States with premium dine-in cinemas, including a location at American Dream in New Jersey. In 2016, it opened its first U.S. location under the banner CMX: The VIP Cinema Experience, at Brickell City Centre in Miami. In October 2017, Cinemex announced its intent to acquire Cobb Theatres via the CMX Cinemas subsidiary, which made it the eighth-largest U.S. cinema chain with 30 locations.
