page_title: Cathay Organisation
section_title: The early years
hierarchical_section_title: Cathay Organisation / History / The early years
caption_attribution_description: English: The Cathay.
context_page_description: Cathay Organisation Holdings Limited is one of Singapore's leisure and entertainment groups. It has the first THX cinema hall and digital cinema in Singapore. The group has operations in Singapore and Malaysia.
context_section_description: Associated Theatres Ltd was established on 18 July 1935 in Singapore by Mrs Loke Cheng Kim with the help of her three partners: her undergraduate son Loke Wan Tho, her relative Khoo Teik Ee, and a British friend Max Baker. In 1936, the company opened its first cinema in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Pavilion, with 1200 seats. The year 1939 saw the landmark Cathay Building open in Singapore with the Cathay Cinema premiering Sir Alexander Korda's The Four Feathers.
  Cathay was the country's first air-conditioned cinema i.e. Cathay Cinema and the first skyscraper, the tallest in Southeast Asia during that time. It was the first time patrons could watch movies air-conditioned and sitting in a comfortable armchair. It was also used as a landmark by pilots as a final approach before landing. Three years later, it showed its last show and was converted into a Red Cross casualty station. After the end of war in 1945, Cathay reopened and it was Singapore's first cinema to show American and British pictures as its first screening after closure. It signed a joint venture with another company to distribute mobile films to villages and estates in Malaysia. The group installed a new air-conditioning plant in 1948 and they started to acquire many cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia.
caption: The Cathay, formerly the Cathay Building, opened in 1939. Its front was gazetted as a national monument on 15 February 2003 with its front facade preserved to its 1930s state and the rest of the building redeveloped.
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