United States-based Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, which controls casino operator Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment, is likely to be able to reduce its ratio of debt-to-earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by the end of fiscal-year 2021, says Moody’s Investors Service Inc.
But the institution added that the parent would in likelihood still have a level of leverage that leaves it with “a high degree of financial risk”. Mohegan Gaming is the promoter of an under-development casino resort called Inspire Entertainment Resort, in South Korea.
Moody’s added: “This risk is compounded by our expectation that there will be continued ongoing operational challenges and earnings and cash flow pressure from efforts to contain the coronavirus, and that there will be a slow recovery to pre-coronavirus volume.”
In late March, it emerged that Inspire Entertainment Resort, a project with a foreigner-only casino, in Incheon, South Korea, was to be granted a one-year postponement on the first-phase opening.
In late January it was announced that Mohegan Gaming – which has its current flagship operation in Connecticut in the U.S. – had teamed with a Japan unit of Hong Kong-listed Oshidori International Holdings Ltd, for a tilt at creating a casino resort in the Japanese prefecture of Nagasaki.
Friday’s review stated that Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority’s corporate family credit rating of “Caa1” reflected the group’s “high leverage, earnings concentration in a few properties with high competition, and exposure to cyclical volatility,” said Moody’s.
According to Moody’s, obligations rated ‘Caa’ are “judged to be speculative of poor standing and are subject to very high credit risk”.
