GGRAsia – Positive momentum in U.S. for GEN Malaysia: Maybank

Positive momentum in U.S. for GEN Malaysia: Maybank

Sep 11, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck, World

The recent resumption by authorities in the state of New York, in the United States, of a process to grant three downstate commercial casino licences, and new developments regarding a potential casino under the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, in Massachusetts, also in the U.S., are positive news for international casino operator Genting Malaysia Bhd. That is according to a memo issued on Sunday by Maybank IBG Research.

Analyst Samuel Yin Shao Yang stated that, if both projects were to move ahead, the long term – i.e., full-2025 – earnings estimates for Genting Malaysia “could be lifted by 74 percent”. Maybank currently expects Genting Malaysia to post earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation amounting to MYR3.55 billion (US$769 million) in full-year 2025.

He noted, regarding the request-for-applications process in New York: “We have long viewed Genting Malaysia’s 100-percent-owned Resorts World New York City to win one [licence] as it can deploy table games and generate additional tax revenue for New York State quickly, thanks to its existing infrastructure.”

A number of large gaming operators with Asia venues – including MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands Corp, Wynn Resorts Ltd, and Genting Malaysia – have been linked to a bid for an downstate-New York licence. Maybank’s Sunday memo said the New York authorities had recently signalled they were resuming the attribution process, “after more than six months of silence”.

Genting Malaysia already operates a gaming facility in New York state, near John F. Kennedy International Airport, via its subsidiary Genting New York LLC.

Brokerage CBRE Securities LLC suggested in a note earlier this year that MGM Resorts and the Genting group – the former also already runs electronic games facilities in the state – were “front-runners” for two of the three downstate New York licences “given their long-standing history” in New York.

The Maybank memo also said that “the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which is indebted to Genting Malaysia, could be trying to revive construction of its own integrated resort, the First Light Resort & Casino.” It noted the tribe had “formally requested a meeting with the Taunton City Council to discuss” the project. Construction of the project has been abandoned.

The latter was a reference to a stalled tribal gaming project in which Genting Malaysia had invested some promissory notes.

Mr Yin recalled Genting Malaysia had impaired MYR1.83 billion of its Mashpee Wampanoag promissory notes in the third quarter of 2018 due to the tribe’s legal woes.

Genting Malaysia swung to a second-quarter profit of MYR47.1 million, compared to a loss of nearly MYR10.9 million in second-quarter 2022, it announced last month. It declared an interim single-tier dividend of MYR0.06 per ordinary share, payable on October 2.

The group has its flagship operation at Resorts World Genting, Malaysia’s only casino complex. It also runs casinos in the United Kingdom, Egypt, the United States, and the Bahamas.