Manila’s Solaire Resort & Casino turned its first sizable profit in the first quarter, 12 months after it opened as the first gaming resort at a nascent government-sponsored tourist complex known as Entertainment City.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp., the resort’s PSX-listed owner, reported net income of 1.46 billion pesos (US$32.7 million) for the January-March period.
It comes nine months after Bloomberry fired the $750 million resort’s operating company, U.S.-based Global Gaming Asset Management.
“It is significant that we were able to turn a profit after only a year of operation,” Bloomberry Chairman and Chief Executive Enrique Razon said in a statement. “This is proof positive that the group, without a third-party management company, has the ability and the acumen to manage an integrated resort.”
The profit was achieved on revenues that were 95.7 percent generated on the casino floor. Just 3.9 percent came from food and beverage and the hotel. Retail and other income made up 0.4 percent.
Razon said the past year was spent “building our core business” and that an expanded hotel, a pool, a showroom and a retail mall would open in the fourth quarter of this year.
