Australia’s Echo Entertainment Group said cost cutting and 5.7 percent bump in gaming revenue at its Sydney and Queensland casinos combined to boost earnings in the third quarter.
It signaled a strong start for new CEO Matt Bekier as the company’s ASX-listed shares jumped more than 12 percent on the news to trade near their 52-week high of A$3.72.
That contrasts with the record low struck in February when Bekier’s predecessor, Las Vegas industry veteran John Redmond, resigned after just over a year in the position amid a frontal assault from James Packer’s Crown Resorts on Echo’s key urban markets of Sydney and Brisbane.
Echo’s stock shed 34 percent of its value under Redmond’s watch as the company lost a battle with Crown to retain its Sydney monopoly at The Star casino on Darling Harbour and faces a similar prospect in Queensland, where Packer is lobbying heavily for a new license to be awarded in Brisbane and a number of deep-pocketed foreign investors are vying for two more licenses the state plans to award.
Bekier was Echo’s chief financial officer and an executive director and has been with the company since it was spun off from betting giant Tabcorp Holdings in 2011.
