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Australian casino firm Crown Resorts Ltd has been found “suitable” to retain its Sydney, New South Wales (NSW) casino licence, after nearly three years of work by the group to improve its overall business practices.The New South Wales Independent Casino Commission (NICC) gave the news in a Tuesday statement.Crown Sydney (pictured) had in June 2022 been approved for a gaming licence by New South Wales. The conditions included ongoing monitoring by regulators.
Crown Resorts was acquired by investment group Blackstone Inc The monitoring requirements stemmed from prior events, including in February 2021, the pre-Blackstone Crown Resorts being at the new Sydney complex at Barangaroo, following an inquiry into how the casino group ran its existing Australian business.But on Tuesday, the NICC’s Chief Commissioner Philip Crawford said in a statement: “The NICC is confident the Crown [Resorts] we deemed suitable today has a strong model to keep operating into the future.”
Though he added: “Hard work and transformation aside, the NICC has not forgotten the level of misconduct exposed in 2021 when Crown was found unsuitable.”Crown Resorts and Crown Sydney acknowledged the regulator’s Tuesday decision of suitability, and said that the Crown group had invested AUD200 million (US$129.1 million) in a “comprehensive transformation” of its business.
Crown Sydney CEO, Mark McWhinnie, was cited as saying in a Tuesday statement by Crown Resorts: “Since opening the Crown Sydney casino in August 2022, we have worked tirelessly to implement wholesale reform across our business, delivering 432 remediation activities to the NICC across key areas, including harm minimisation, financial crime, compliance, risk, and culture.”
Last month, it was announced that Crown Resorts could its flagship Melbourne, Victoria, casino. The decision was said by the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission to be in the public interest.Crown Perth, in Western Australia, is still implementing its own remediation plan, with a report due to be submitted to that state’s regulator by the end of January 2025, Crown Resorts said in its Tuesday statement.Last year, the casino operator agreed to for breaking anti-money laundering laws.
Brokerage JP Morgan Securities LLC has suggested that Las Vegas Sands Corp’s 2025 property-level Macau earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, amortisation and rent (EBITDAR) could rise 16.6 percent year-on-year.
The forecast was included in a Tuesday note on Las Vegas Sands, parent of Macau operator Sands China Ltd.
JP Morgan said it expected the 2025 figure to be nearly US$2.77 billion, compared to more than US$2.37 billion for full-year 2024.
Analysts Joe Greff and Sam Nielsen said factors leading to such EBITDAR increase were likely to include that at the Londoner Macao (pictured) “renovation disruption” to hotel space and gaming space seen during 2024 “will meaningfully abate from here”.
They added, referring to a revamp and rebranding as the ‘Londoner Grand Casino’ for one of that resort’s two main gaming floors: “With the newly-renovated casino already now open, and hotel rooms and other revenue generating inputs opening on a staggered basis in the fourth quarter 2024 and into 2025… [it] should allow for Las Vegas Sands to achieve above-Macau-peer growth in 2025.”
In another Tuesday memo ahead of third-quarter 2024 earnings reporting season, JP Morgan said that one of Sands China’s five Macau-market rivals – MGM China Holdings Ltd – could see its 2025 property-level EBITDA fall by 2.0 percent year on year.
Mr Greff and Mr Nielsen estimated MGM China’s 2025 property-based EBITDAR could be US$1.05 billion, versus an expected US$1.07 billion for full-year 2024.
MGM China runs the MGM Macau property on Macau peninsula, and MGM Cotai in the newer casino district, Cotai.
Factors in JP Morgan’s revised estimate included “our anticipation of give-back in GGR [gross gaming revenue] market share in Macau, also providing for tough year-on-year comparisons”.
At an investment conference in late September, MGM Resorts’ chief financial officer, Jonathan Halkyard, said MGM China would in likelihood maintain its GGR share in the Macau market “in the mid-teens,” and its EBITDA margin “in the high twenties”.
JP Morgan forecast that the property-level EBITDAR margin on MGM Resorts’ Macau business, which it majority owns, would be 27.2 percent this year, and 27.9 percent in 2025.
At the time of the group’s second-quarter earnings in August, MGM Resorts stated that its GGR market share in Macau “further climbed to 16.5 percent” for the six-month period, from 14.9 percent a year earlier and 9.5 percent in 2019.
Macau casino business Wynn Macau Ltd says the conversion price of its US$600 million 4.50-percent convertible bonds due in 2029, will be adjusted subsequent to the company announcing the payment of dividends.
In mid-August, Wynn Macau Ltd declared an interim dividendof HKD0.075 (US$0.01) per share, due to be paid on September 12.
The casino operator resumed this year a dividend payment, announcing in March a 2023 final dividend of HKD0.075 per share.
“Pursuant to the terms and conditions of the convertible bonds, the conversion price is subject to adjustment for, among other things, capital distributions made by the company,” said the casino firm in a Tuesday filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The company said the conversion price has been adjusted from HKD10.24375 to HKD10.01212.
Such adjustment will become effective on September 4, in connection with the declaration and payment of this year’s interim dividend, it added.
“Apart from the [price] adjustment, all other terms and conditions of the convertible bonds will remain unchanged,” stated the firm.
Wynn Macau Ltd operates the Wynn Palace resort (pictures) on Cotai, and also runs the Wynn Macau resort on the city’s peninsula. The company is a unit of U.S.-based casino developer Wynn Resorts Ltd.
Wynn Macau Ltd said in May that its board had approved amendments to the company’s dividend policy. According to the amended dividend policy, the firm’s board is to “meet semi-annually to consider the declaration of dividends”.
Wynn Macau Ltd reported operating revenues of US$885.3 million for the second quarter, down 11.3 percent from the preceding quarter. The company said its second-quarter results were negatively impacted by a “slightly lower market share” and a “slightly lower mass hold quarter-over-quarter”