After facing a month which saw a 49 percent decline in gaming revenue from the year before, Wynn Resorts Ltd. has decided to issue a special stock dividend at the end of the month. Wynn Macau Ltd., which trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, plans to pay a dividend of 14 cents per share, 6 million total, to stockholders at the end of the month.
Jamie Zhou, a Hong Kong based gaming analyst with Macquarie Securities, said he hadn’t anticipated the dividend, but “could signal discontinuation of a regular dividend payout policy for the foreseeable future.” When combined with regular dividends, Wynn Macau will shell out $1.18 billion to shareholders for the year, 18 percent more than the previous year.
Wynn Resorts spokesman Michael Weaver said the dividends would be used for “generational operations of the company. That’s been the practice since 2006. Macau saw $44.1 billion in gaming revenue on the year of 2014. That number is a decline of 2.6 percent from the $45.2 billion of 2013. It marked the first ever year of a gaming revenue decline, and is not expected to get back to normal for another year or so.
