MGM Resorts has had its shares bumped up thanks in no small part to their success in the Macau casino market. Dennis Forst of KeyBanc Capital Markets said in a note that the company had a better-than-expected first quarter on the Vegas strip. That came after the nine properties that MGM manages generated $235million in EITDA.
Forst also lavished praise on Macau, adding that the enclave’s overall growth for the year-to-date had surpassed anything that he’d expected. The analyst added that he wouldn’t be surprised were the market to grow by more than 30% this year. It all meant that Forst raised the company’s rating to “Hold” from “Underweight.”
Sticking with Macau, the hotel sector received an influx of guests during the month of May. Hotels and guesthouses took in 689,000 in the month, up 5.9% on the same period last year. For the first five months of the year, the amount also increased by 2.7% to 3.28m. In terms of where guests were arriving from, the vast majority came from Mainland China (54.3%) with Hong Kong also seeing 18.5% go to the enclave.
One of the most encouraging figures of all was the fact that average occupancy rate was up to 82%, which represented an increase of 4.1% on the same time last year. The total number of rooms has also increased by 9% to 21,500 and that’s off the back of the opening of the Galaxy Macau.
