Bloomberry curbs Q3 losses

INTEGRATED gaming resort developer and operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp. narrowed net losses in the third quarter as improved domestic operations made up for the slack in its fledgling operations in South Korea.

Bloomberry, owner and operator of Solaire Resort & Casino along Manila Bay and Jeju Sun Hotel & Casino in Korea, reported P1.51 billion net loss in the first nine months compared to P3.3 billion in net profit in the same period last year.

For the third quarter alone, Bloomberry narrowed its net loss to P189 million from the P787 million net loss in the second quarter. In the third quarter of last year, Bloomberry had a net profit of P991.7 million.

Philippine operations turned in P281 million in net profit in the third quarter of this year while the Korean unit incurred a net loss of P471 million.

For the nine-month period, Bloomberry’s revenues net of promotional allowances grew by 29 percent year-on-year and 19 percent quarter-on-quarter to P7.094 billion.

“Our investments in the Sky Tower are beginning to show returns.  Given the improvement in Philippine operations and the opening of a new revenue stream, we are hopeful that returns will continue to gain higher ground,” Bloomberry chair and chief executive officer Enrique Razon Jr. said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Gross gaming revenues and non-gaming revenues for the first nine months of the year hit P24.55 billion and P1.38 billion, respectively, growing by 14 percent and 53 percent year-on-year.

The company reported strong growth across all gaming segments and additional incremental growth in non-gaming revenues with the opening of Sky Tower – a new leisure complex which is part of the expansion of Solaire – in November 2014 and the consolidation of Korean operations beginning in the second quarter 2015.  

Jeju Sun, in its first 15 days of casino operations, accounted for less than 1 percent of consolidated gross gaming revenues and 13 percent of consolidated non-gaming revenues.