Australia’s Hoyts Corporation is beefing up its New Zealand cinema business with the purchase of Barrie Everard’s Berkeley Cinema Group.

The Auckland-based company is the fourth largest cinema circuit in this country and the second largest in Auckland, with 21 screens in four complexes at Botany Downs, Mission Bay, Takapuna and Hibiscus Coast.

The third-largest is the US-owned Reading, which has large complexes in Wellington and Christchurch and seven other locations. It was previously a co-owner with Mr Everard of Botany Downs.