MGM Resorts International owes a lot of thanks to their joint venture with Pansy Ho over in Macau. The $3.5bn gain that resulted from MGM China’s IPO meant that net income was $3.44bn comparing favorably to a loss of $833.5m last year. Even excluding the gains seen in Macau, the business still managed a 5 cent loss per share up from an average 13 cent loss predicted by 23 analysts.
Apart from that figure, revenue for the company was augmented by 17% to $1.81bn thus beating the analysts’ estimates that it would hit a mere $1.61bn.
The group was also buoyed by a slow period of recovery in Las Vegas. This included occupancy rising from 93% to 94% out in the desert and the revenue available per room increasing by 10%.
It was something that was very pleasing for the Chairman and CEO Jim Murren, who commented, “If you’re getting growth in the Luxors and Monte Carlos and New York New Yorks, that’s telling you that the U.S. customer is spending more money,” Murren said. “That’s encouraging to us.”
He also added, “Importantly for the first time since the downturn the company experienced two sequential quarters of operational improvement. This combined with very solid forward trends lead us to believe the signs of recovery in Las Vegas are consistent and we’re going to continue to see improvement.”
MGM China itself swung into profit in the second quarter posting a net income of $67.12m compared to a loss of $40.36m a year earlier. Net revenue for the company more than doubled to $668.29m.
