Tim Richards is the doyen of the UK cinema industry, having abandoned a Hollywood studio career to improve the cinema going experience at the start of the new Millennium. After working for UCI (Paramount-Universal) and Warner Bros., Tim Richards scraped together funding to buy six UK cinemas, with the first opening in Livingston, Scotland in 2000. Two years later he closed the GBP £250 million deal to acquire the Warner Village Chain of 36 cinemas, which became the core of Vue.
Source: CJ Interviews Tim Richards, CEO, Vue, UK & Europe – Celluloid Junkie