GGRAsia – Success Universe to return to profit for full-year 2018

Success Universe to return to profit for full-year 2018

Mar 04, 2019 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau casino investor Success Universe Group Ltd says it will report a profit for 2018, having made a loss the year before. The company told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday that it based that expectation on the draft unaudited consolidated management accounts for the group.

Success Universe gave no estimate of the size of the profit but said the positive result for full-year 2018 is due mainly to its share of the profit flowing from the Ponte 16 casino resort (pictured) in Macau. Located on the Macau peninsula and operated under SJM Holdings Ltd’s gaming licence, the casino had 96 gaming tables for the mass market, seven high-limit gaming tables and six VIP gaming tables in August.

Success Universe told the stock exchange that it expects to issue results later this month.

The company made a full-year loss of about HKD29.8 million (US$3.8 million) in 2017, losing money for the second year in a row, partly because business at Ponte 16 was disrupted by floodwaters caused by a typhoon. The company also reported a one-time loss on the sale of a lottery in mainland China.

The company went on to report a first-half profit of HKD14.66 million for the period January 1 to June 30 last year. The first interim profit for the company since 2014 – Success Universe recorded a HKD21.07-million loss in the corresponding period of 2017 – was on the strength of growth in revenue from HKD272.97 million to HKD478.55 million.

Management said the turnaround was mainly due to increases in the fair value on investment properties and growth in the profit derived from Ponte 16.

A Success Universe subsidiary bought a commercial property in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, for HKD106.8 million last August, adding to the group’s property portfolio.

More recently, a power outage led to a 10-hour suspension of operations at Ponte 16 in January. Success Universe deputy chairman and executive director Hoffman Ma Ho Man told GGRAsia the stoppage would affect the quarter’s business performance but was “manageable”.