Hong Kong-listed gaming investor International Entertainment Corp (IEC) has issued a profit alert for the six-month period to 31 December 2022, with the company expecting to report a significantly narrowed loss.
According to details filed overnight, loss for the first half of the financial year is expected to narrow by around 95% from the HK$136.6 million loss recorded a year earlier.
This, it said, is due to an increase in revenue from the group’s gaming and hotel operations and a decrease in fair value loss of investment properties “because following the reopening of the Philippines’ borders to local and foreign tourists and the lifting of most of the anti-pandemic measures in the first half of 2022, the tourism and gaming sectors have started to recover.”
Interim results are due to be published on 28 February.
IEC owns New Coast Hotel Manila in the Philippines where it revealed in 2021 plans to co-run casino operations alongside local gaming regulator PAGCOR as part of a cooperation agreement. The company said at the time that it plans to use the know-how it acquires from PAGCOR to develop and operate its own integrated resort in Manila, having already been granted a provisional gaming license.
IEC also owns the rights to run live poker events under the PokerStars brand across much of Asia.