Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited begins reviving C2 chain in Cyprus
May 17, 2021
In Cyprus and casino operator Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited has announced the partial re-opening of its chain of Cyprus Casinos (C2) venues following an over five-month shuttering linked to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Hong Kong-headquartered operator used an official press release to declare that the revivals from today will allow the properties in the communities of Nicosia, Paphos, Limassol and Ayia Napa to ‘continue providing guests with an unparalleled entertainment experience’ while simultaneously ‘closely adhering to all relevant guidelines issued by the Minister of Health’.
Tough times:
Casino operator Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd posted a net loss of US$232.9 million for the three months to March 31, an improvement on the US$364.0-million loss recorded a year earlier. The result was however worse than the US$199.7-million loss reported in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a Wednesday filing to Nasdaq.
Melco Resorts run gaming operations in Macau; in Manila, in the Philippines; and in the Republic of Cyprus.
The company’s total operating revenues for the period between January and March were US$518.9 million, down slightly from the US$528.0-million revenue achieved in the fourth quarter 2020. Such revenue was down 36.0 percent from US$811.2 million in the prior-year period.
Mass-market players in the Macau casino sector “do not seem to be playing quite as strongly as they have in the past,” said a senior executive from Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd during the group’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
That might be “a function of… a different customer coming in right now,” added David Sisk (pictured in a file photo), the firm’s chief operating officer.
A Monday note from brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd mentioned Macau’s April casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) had been “steady” even as visitor volume had risen, indicating that the recovery of the Macau tourism sector had involved a “low-value customer” segment in gaming terms.
Casino operator Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd could see its 2021 revenue recover to 50 percent of 2019 levels, says a Thursday note from Moody’s Investors Service Inc.
This would probably be “driven by a faster recovery in the mass-market segment than the VIP segment,” said analysts Sean Hwang, Gloria Tsuen, and Keun Woo Park.
Melco Resorts’ key market is Macau, where it runs the City of Dreams and Studio City resorts on Cotai, and Altira in Taipa. It also runs the City of Dreams Manila casino resort in the Philippine capital, and has gaming operations in the Republic of Cyprus.
Recently-issued Macau government data on the structure of the gaming market in the first quarter, showed that mass-market games – including slot machines – provided 61.4 percent of all Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR), at MOP14.51 billion (US$1.82 billion).