Losses continue to batter Caesars Entertainment
News on 12 Aug 2014
News on 12 Aug 2014
Social gaming operations through Caesars Entertainment subsidiary Caesars Interactive Entertainment delivered on of the few bright spots in the parent group’s convoluted and acronym-ridden half-year results posted this week, with social and mobile gaming driving the 95.4 percent growth in CIE revenues to $144.6 million.
In the second quarter ended June 30, CIE’s Playtika subsidiary was the star, posting revenues up 90 percent y-o-y to $134.4 million.
Interestingly, this outshone CIE’s real money remote gambling numbers from Nevada and New Jersey, which recorded a q-o-q advance of around 20 percent to just $10.2 million.
Regrettably these bright spots were not sufficient to save CIE acknowledging an operating loss of $20.5 million, although impairment and acquisition costs totalling $47.4 million contributed to the decline. Nevertheless, earnings rose 119 percent to $44 million.
Playtika continues to hold promise, and converted a respectable 3.2 percent of its average monthly social users to revenues generators…considerably higher than rivals like Zynga.
The company’s social gamers also proved to be bigger spenders, with average revenue per daily average user at 28 cents vs. Zynga’s 7 cents.
On a group basis, Caesars Entertainment numbers did not make happy reading for investors, with the group posting a $466.4 million half-year loss – well up on the corresponding period last year, when the loss was $212.2 million. In investment terms that’s a loss of $3.24 a share compared to $1.69 a share.
Caesars reported that revenue increased 3 percent to $2.19 billion from $2.12 billion in the same period last year, but interest costs on the group’s monumental debt burden of $24.2 billion rose 21.1 percent and constituted a major drag on performance.
Caesars Entertainment shares have dropped $7.87, or 36.5 percent, to $13.67 since the beginning of the year. The stock has declined $4.69, or 26 percent, in the last 12 months, reports the ASssociated Press news agency.
