Bloomberry boosted by VIP spending
Asian casino operator Bloomberry Resorts said cost-cutting, marketing and VIP spending helped it to turn a loss in the second quarter of last year into a profit during the corresponding period in 2016.
In a trading update for the three months to June 30, the owner of the vast Solaire casino resort in the Philippines reported a net profit of approximately PHP1.33 billion (€25.6 million/$28.5 million) compared to a loss of PHP773.5 million in Q2 2015, when the company paid the price for its failed expansion in South Korea.
Gaming revenue for Q2 was up 43% to PHP7.8 billion, which made up 93% of the firm’s total turnover of PHP8.4 billion.
The company said that the second quarter produced the best-ever quarterly ‘mass table drop’, which was up 16%. Bloomberry reported that VIP table revenue grew by 58.1% year-on-year to nearly PHP5.7 billion.
Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation rose 161% year-on-year, to just over PHP4.11 billion.
Bloomberry said that operating costs and expenses fell slightly year-on-year in the quarter, by almost 2%, to just over PHP5.51 billion.
Enrique Razon, chairman and chief executive of Bloomberry, said: “Our hard-stance policy on cost and capital management, coupled with our aggressive marketing campaign, has proven to be effective as shown by these outstanding results.
“We are bucking the trend in regional gaming which has been showing weakness. We are confident that this growth streak will continue.”
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