Hong Kong-listed Macau Legend Development Ltd expects its full-2020 loss to leap significantly in year-on-year terms. The firm expects such loss to range from HKD1.9 billion to HKD2.0 billion (i.e., between US$245 million and US$258 million).
The likely loss was flagged in a filing on Thursday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Macau Legend posted a HKD190-million loss in full-year 2019.
The firm runs three casinos in Macau – Landmark, Babylon (pictured) and Legend Palace – under a so-called services agreement with Macau licensee SJM Holdings Ltd. Macau Legend also has a tourism complex called Macau Fisherman’s Wharf, a waterfront area close to the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal on Macau peninsula.
The firm has additionally invested in a Laos casino resort.
In its Thursday filing, Macau Legend said the expected loss for 2020 was a result of a “significant decrease in revenue” linked to social distancing measures and travel restrictions imposed by government authorities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Such measures, the firm said, had “severely” affected “the tally of visitor arrivals to Macau and Laos during 2020”.
Macau Legend added that “impairment losses recognised for certain business unit(s) due to the adverse changes in [the] economic situation under Covid-19 pandemic” also had contributed to its 2020 loss.
The company stated it had “undertaken various mitigating measures to manage the current environment, including active measures to control its operating costs and expenses.”
Macau Legend recently underwent a board rejig, after Macau casino junket boss Levo Chan Weng Lin upped his investment in the firm to 33.19 percent.
