MGM Mirage, the biggest casino owner on the Las Vegas Strip, reported a first quarter profit from the sale of a casino. Shares extended gains after the company said business was stabilizing.
Net income dropped 11 percent to US$105.2 million, or US$0.38 a share, from US$118.3 million, or US$0.40, a year earlier, the Las Vegas-based company said in a statement yesterday. The results included a gain of US$0.44 from the sale of Treasure Island.
Revenue tumbled 20 percent to US$1.5 billion from US$1.88 billion a year earlier. MGM Mirage is selling rooms at steep discounts through Web sites such as Orbitz to attract tourists in the city’s worst gambling slump on record. The worst may be over, chief executive officer Jim Murren said.
“Cancellations have tapered off and we see signs that business levels seem to be stabilizing,” Murren said in a statement.
Hotel occupancy was “unusually low in January, improved in February, and returned to a normalized level of approximately 95 percent in March,” MGM Mirage said.
MGM Mirage advanced 4.5 percent to US$9.86 in extended trading. Earlier, the shares rose US$1.58, or 20 percent, to US$9.44 at 4pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
The shares have surged fourfold since the end of March. The rise includes a 53 percent increase since April 29, when MGM Mirage and partner Dubai World reached an agreement with banks that will allow them to finish construction the US$8.5 billion CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip.
MGM Mirage also resolved a lawsuit with Dubai World over CityCenter and won more time from lenders to restructure its corporate finances.
The company, with more than US$14 billion in debt at the end of the quarter, is considering all options, including asset sales and debt buybacks as it restructures, and has enough unencumbered assets to raise more capital, Murren said in an interview last Wednesday.
Wynn Resorts Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp, MGM Mirage’s two biggest Strip competitors with publicly traded shares, both report first-quarter earnings today.
MGM Mirage has nine casinos on the Las Vegas strip. The company, controlled by Kirk Kerkorian, was offering rooms through Orbitz last month starting from US$81 at Mirage and from US$139 at its highest-end resort, Bellagio.
Convention attendance fell 29 percent in the first two months of the year, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority said.
The revenue MGM Mirage gets for each available room in Las Vegas, a measure of rates and occupancy called Revpar, fell 34 percent in the quarter to US$102.
Las Vegas Strip casino gambling revenue tumbled 23 percent in February.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The China Coast Guard has seized control of a disputed reef near a major Philippine military outpost in the South China Sea, Beijing’s state media said, adding to longstanding territorial tensions with Manila. Beijing claims sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea and has waved away competing assertions from other countries as well as an international ruling that its position has no legal basis. China and the Philippines have engaged in months of confrontations in the contested waters, and Manila is taking part in sweeping joint military drills with the US which Beijing has slammed as destabilizing. The Chinese coast guard
RSS