Lawrence Ho’s Melco International Development continues to reap the rewards of its ownership stake in Melco Crown Entertainment, posting a 52.8% jump in net income through the first half of the year to HK$885.5 million.
The Hong Kong-listed holding company (0200), Mr Ho’s principal investment vehicle, recorded HK$970.2 million in net cash in-flow for the six months ended 30th June and ended the period with cash and cash equivalents totaling $1.18 billion.
The company declared a final dividend of 20.8 Hong Kong cents per share.
Melco’s 33.4% share of Nasdaq- and Hong Kong-listed Melco Crown — James Packer’s Crown Resorts is an equal co-owner — is the company’s cash engine. MCE owns Macau casinos City of Dreams on Cotai and Altira Macau in downtown Taipa and the city’s Mocha Clubs chain of machine gaming venues. Next year, MCE will open its third Macau resort, its second on Cotai, Studio City, in which MCE owns 60%, and is expanding in the Philippines with a super-resort scheduled to open later this year, City of Dreams Manila.
Separately, Melco International owns 38% of Entertainment Gaming Asia, a machine gaming distributor and operator in Cambodia and the Philippines, and is spearheading development of the first casino in Russia’s Far East, backed by an investment group called Summit Ascent Holdings and slated to open near Vladivostok by the first quarter of 2015. The company also has signed on to participate with an investment group developing a multi-phased mixed-use resort complex in Barcelona, Spain.
The company’s other major investment, its China lottery division, didn’t fare so well in the first half. MelcoLot, in which it owns 43%, reported a loss of HK$20.8 million amid a 28% decline in revenues and a $7 million foreign exchange loss.
MelcoLot supplies products and retail services to China’s state-run Welfare and Sports lotteries and is an investor in South Korea’s National Welfare lottery.
