Mar 06, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  
Macau casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd reported a loss for full-year 2023 of HKD2.01 billion (US$256.9 million). That was a narrowing from the 2022 loss of nearly HKD7.80 billion, showed the company’s latest annual results filing lodged with the Hong Kong bourse on Wednesday.
The firm’s adjusted earnings before interest taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for 2023 were nearly HKD1.73 billion, compared to negative adjusted EBITDA of approximately HKD3.10 billion in the previous fiscal year.
SJM’s 2023 net gaming revenue was HKD20.06 billion, up by 229.3 percent year-on-year, but was still about 40 percent lower than the net gaming revenue at HKD33.16 billion in 2019, according to corporate data.
The company did not recommend any final dividend for the year to December 31.
“SJM Holdings’ results for 2023 show substantial recovery in gaming and non-gaming revenues from the pandemic years. In addition, our operations in the fourth quarter show strong sequential growth in adjusted EBITDA as well as steady progress in the ramp-up of Grand Lisboa Palace,” said SJM Holdings’ chairman Daisy Ho Chiu Fung, in prepared remarks included in the results release.
Grand Lisboa Palace (pictured) in Cotai – which opened amid the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2021 – ended full-year 2023 with adjusted negative property EBITDA of HKD317 million, compared to a negative HKD969 million in 2022.
Grand Lisboa, the company’s Macau peninsula flagship, delivered adjusted property EBITDA of nearly HKD1.33 billion in 2023, compared to a negative HKD758 million in 2022.
SJM Holdings had, in 2023, a “11.9 percent” market share of Macau’s gross gaming revenue, including “14.8 percent” of the citywide mass-market table gross gaming revenue (GGR) and “3.5 percent” of VIP GGR, the company stated in the filing.
Among Macau gaming concessionaires with satellite casino interests, SJM Holdings has the greatest number. As of December 31, the nine satellite casinos that use its licence generated aggregate GGR of nearly HKD8.65 billion, up 128.3 percent year-on-year. But these satellite properties also collectively generated negative adjusted property EBITDA amounting to HKD338 million in 2023, though that was narrowed from the negative HKD635 million in the previous year.
As at December-end, SJM Holdings had HKD4.55 billion in cash, bank balances, short-term bank deposits and pledged bank deposits. The company’s debt stood at HKD28.15 billion.
The firm also noted in its Wednesday filing, that an additional non-gaming investment it would be required to make under the new 10-year concession system that started in January 2023, was “manageable”, and related to Macau’s market-wide annual GGR having already exceeded MOP180 billion (US$22.34 billion) in 2023.
That market-wide threshold means SJM Holdings for its part, will have “to increase its total amount of non-gaming investment obligations by 20 percent, or MOP2.4 billion, to a total of MOP14.4 billion during the life of the gaming concession”, the company noted in Tuesday’s filing.
It added: “The amount covers both capital investment and events and is regarded by the company as manageable and reasonable”.
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