Casino equipment, lottery services and online games provider Scientific Games Corp says its first-quarter aggregate revenue rose by 0.6 percent year-on-year, to US$729 million, despite a decline in the gaming segment. Such group-wide result was still a 4.3-percent fall from the fourth-quarter of 2020, according to a Monday filing.
The group said its lottery and digital businesses “delivered double-digit revenue growth” during the reporting period. Gaming revenue however “continued to be impacted by casino restrictions and closures, particularly in Europe,” stated Scientific Games.
Gaming revenue stood at US$244 million in the three months to March 31, down 23.3 percent from the prior-year period, and a 14.7-percent fall from the preceding quarter, as the segment “was impacted by Covid-19 restrictions for casinos globally,” said the gaming supplier.
Casino game supplier and lottery services firm International Game Technology Plc says it completed on Monday the EUR950-million (US$1.15-billion) sale of a consumer-facing Italian gaming business.
The company said its unit IGT Lottery SpA completed the sale of 100-percent of the share capital of Lottomatica Videolot Rete SpA and Lottomatica Scommesse Srl, the entities running the group’s business-to-consumer (B2C) gaming machine, sports betting, and digital gaming businesses in Italy.
The buyer is Gamenet Group SpA, identified as a subsidiary of funds managed by an affiliate of private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc.
According to the deal, EUR725 million was payable at closing of the deal; with a further EUR100 million on December 31, 2021; and the remaining EUR125 million payable on September 30, 2022.
Singapore’s Ministry of Transport said in a Monday statement that the city-state had agreed with Hong Kong to start an air travel bubble between the two places on May 26.
It will be done “cautiously” with one flight per day in each direction, and capped at 200 passengers per flights, for at least the first two weeks.
Singapore is home to two casino resorts: Resorts World Sentosa, run by Genting Singapore Ltd; and Marina Bay Sands, run by a unit of Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Las Vegas Sands’ chairman and chief executive, Robert Goldstein, said last week it was “hard to see Singapore return to pre-pandemic levels this year,” as that market requires international travel to recover. “Not having foreign players, is very hurtful [to the business],” stated Mr Goldstein. He was speaking during the group’s first-quarter earnings call.
Brokerage Union Gaming Securities LLC says it does not expect the recent precautionary shutdown of operations at Cambodian casino complex NagaWorld (pictured), due to Covid-19 infections, to be “anything like” the “multi-month closure” of that casino market seen last year.
“The quarantine period in Cambodia is two weeks, but we suspect it could take a little longer to reopen out of an abundance of caution,” said a Tuesday note from analyst John DeCree, referring to the Phnom Penh operation of Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp Ltd.
The casino group had said in a March 1 filing to the Hong Kong bourse, that business at NagaWorld had been “voluntarily” suspended after 11 employees tested positive for Covid-19 amid screening of 3,000 workers.
Macau casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd said on Thursday that it expected to raise approximately US$991 million net, via an offering of two tranches of U.S.-dollar denominated senior notes, due respectively in 2026 and 2028. The firm also said it would seek a listing of the notes on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
About 90 percent of the money to be raised, is to refinance loans linked to the group’s HKD39-billion (US$5.0-billion) Cotai resort, Grand Lisboa Palace. In its third-quarter earnings summary, issued in October, the casino group mentioned the possibility of Grand Lisboa Palace opening “during the first quarter of 2021”.