It split from Publishing and Broadcasting group last year

Australian Crown in search of new casinos in United States

2008-08-22
Reading time 1:41 min

Its 19.6 per cent stake in Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was included in the writedown, along with a us$ 45 million loss flagged earlier this year when it quit plans for a Crown Las Vegas casino resort.

Despite the new writedowns Crown CEO Rowen Craigie said the company, while cautious, had not become completely gun shy. "I think in the current environment everyone is more cautious about investments," he said. "If and when a compelling opportunity came up in the US local space, where we think we’re well suited, we’d have a look at that, but we’d be looking for a majority interest and control role."

Crown split from James Packer’s gaming and media group Publishing and Broadcasting last year, although Packer remains its executive chairman. Crown yesterday unveiled a us$ 370.1 million normalized net profit for the year to June 30.

Reported net profit of us$ 3.56 billion was inflated by one-off results of discontinued operations and net gains from the demerger of PBL. Crown shares fell 3 to $8.20, with scrip off almost 40 per cent since the start of the year.

Normalized earnings before interest depreciation and amortization from Melbourne’s Crown casino rose 6.4 per cent to us$ 433.3 million, while normalized EBITDA from Perth’s Burswood casino were up 12.6 per cent to us$ 195.3 million.

Craigie said a tougher trading environment coupled with disruptions from refurbishment programs meant the earnings growth rate from the Australian casino business was likely to slow from about 8.2 per cent in fiscal 2008 to between 4 per cent and 6 per cent in fiscal 2009.

He said earnings from the company’s VIP customers would likely buffer an earnings fall from the "low end" of the casino business. "Interest rates, petrol prices and consumer sentiment will tend to affect the low end of the business more than the high end," he said.

The Melco Crown Entertainment joint venture in Macau, in which Crown has a 37.9 per cent interest, made a net loss of us$ 44.2 million for the year. MPEL’s City of Dreams casino resort on Macau’s Cotai strip is on track to open in the first half of 2009.

Crown also said yesterday that Rob Turner, executive vice-president, international business development, would replace Geoff Kleemann as chief financial officer. He will head up investor relations on a part-time basis from next year.

Crown declared a final dividend of 29, franked at 40 per cent. The record date for the dividend is October 10, with payment expected on October 17.

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