Bloomberry nets nearly P6B, sees “banner” year

INQUIRER PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

Integrated gaming resort developer and operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp. chalked up P5.96 billion in nine-month net profit, surging by 275 percent year-on-year on the back of record-high casino revenues.

For the third quarter alone, the developer of Solaire Resort & Casino along Manila Bay booked a net profit of P1.86 billion, 31 percent higher year-on-year.

Gross gaming revenues (GGR) reached P36.5 billion, the highest recorded for a nine-month period since Solaire opened in 2013. This marked a 23.3-percent growth from last year’s level. GGR accounted for 93.3 percent of the business during the period. Flagship integrated resort Solaire contributed bulk of the GGR at P34.25 billion while its Korean unit Jeju Sun contributed P323.75 million.

Solaire reported a new record for mass table volume and electronic gaming machines coin-in while Jeju Sun reported a positive cash flow for the first time since Bloomberry’s takeover in 2015.

Bloomberry’s non-gaming revenues also reached a record-high of P2.25 billion in the first nine months, 46.7 percent higher year-on-year.

“We continue to grow across all sectors, and hope to see this uptrend continue until the end of the year. Our top line and bottom lines are positive and, despite some minor hiccups, I am confident that 2017 will be a banner year,” Bloomberry chair and chief executive officer Enrique Razon Jr. said.

Solaire posted double-digit growth rates across all segments with record-high mass table drop and slot coin-in in the first nine months of 2017. VIP or high-roller volume, mass table drop and slot coin-in, grew by 9.7 percent, 22.1 percent and 31.4 percent, respectively, for the first nine months of compared to the same period last year.

Due to the strong performance of both its gaming and non-gaming segments in Solaire as well as substantial improvements in Jeju Sun, Bloomberry’s third quarter revenues grew by 22.3 percent year-on-year to P9.6 billion. However, due to an unusually high VIP “hold” rate in the second quarter, consolidated revenues were down slightly by three percent quarter-on-quarter.

A casino’s “win” or “hold” rate is based on the element of luck but is also affected by gaming limits, a player’s skill and resources and amount of time spent in the casino. While it’s often said that the house always wins, sometimes it wins more and sometimes less than the statistical probability.

For the nine-month period, Bloomberry reported a 28 percent year-on-year growth in its revenues to P28.07 billion with Solaire and Jeju Sun reporting revenue growth of 27 percent and 97 percent, respectively.