Grand Korea Leisure Co Ltd (GKL), an operator in South Korea of foreigner-only casinos, saw its third-quarter net profit up 142.7 percent year-on-year to nearly KRW14.67 billion (US$10.02 million), as growth in group-wide sales outpaced the increase in the cost of sales.
Judged quarter-on-quarter, net profit was down 13.5 percent. That is according to unaudited financial results filed on Tuesday to the Korea Exchange, and the firm’s supplementary data.
Group-wide sales stood at KRW109.38 billion in the three months to September 30, up 16.7 percent from a year earlier. Such sales were also up 8.4 percent sequentially.
Grand Korea Leisure’s third-quarter cost of sales – inclusive of promotional expenses for sales, salaries and wages, and contribution to a tourism promotion and development fund – was up circa 6.1 percent year-on-year to KRW83.33 billion. Judged sequentially, it was up about 6.2 percent.
Grand Korea Leisure runs three foreigner-only casinos in South Korea under the Seven Luck brand: two in the capital Seoul, and one in the southern port city of Busan.
The group is a subsidiary of the Korea Tourism Organization, which in turn is affiliated to South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The tourism organisation holds 51-percent stake in Grand Korea Leisure, and its second-largest shareholder is the country’s National Pension Service, which holds 8.44 percent of stake in the casino operator.
The third-quarter results took Grand Korea Leisure’s net profit of the first three quarters of this year to KRW47.73 billion, up 73.1 percent year-on-year. Group sales for the calendar year to September 30 stood at nearly KRW320.19 billion, up 10.2 percent from a year ago.
The company said its casino net sales for the first nine months reached KRW318.7 billion, up nearly 11 percent year-on-year.
The visitor tally for Grand Korea Leisure’s three gaming properties was 788,035 in the first nine months of this year, representing a 4.9 percent growth year-on-year. About 43 percent of the group’s visitors in the period – or 336,883 individuals – were from China, a tally that declined 4.6 percent year-on-year, according to Grand Korea Leisure’s supplementary financial information.
Visitors from Japan, which tallied 277,801 for the January to September period, tracked a year-on-year growth of nearly 16.1 percent.
