Casinos operator Crown Resorts will not reveal its plans for lifting its ailing VIP high-roller business, after reporting a 15.5 per cent fall in normalised net profit for the 2017 financial year.
Casinos operator Crown Resorts will not reveal its plans for lifting its ailing VIP high-roller business, after reporting a 15.5 per cent fall in normalised net profit for the 2017 financial year.
Crown revealed a normalised net profit of $343.1 million for FY17, with revenue down 12.7 per cent to $2.8 billion.
Its underlying normalised earnings in Perth were down 5.8 per cent to $244.8 million, with underlying reported earnings down 10 per cent to $237.3 million.
Its theoretical VIP program play result also dropped from $25.9 million in earnings in FY16 to $12.5 million in FY17.
Crown also said it wouldn’t reveal its VIP high-roller business plans until the last of its employees in China were released.
The remaining five of 16 Crown employees who were jailed in China after pleading guilty to gambling crimes are expected to be released in mid-August.
Crown, whose biggest shareholder is billionaire James Packer, today reported that turnover in its VIP high-roller gambling business had plunged by nearly 49 per cent to $33 billion in the 2016-17 financial year.
VIP play at Crown's casinos in Melbourne and Perth has been hit hard, after a Chinese crackdown on gambling and gambling promotion deterred visits from high-rollers from China.
Crown also exited its joint-venture casinos in Macau following the detention of its employees in China.
Executive chairman John Alexander said Crown would not comment on the China situation or how it would generate more activity in the VIP business until all its employees jailed there had been released.
"Given we have staff still detained, hopefully for not much longer, we're not going to make any further comments on it at this stage," Mr Alexander told reporters.
Mr Alexander said a large proportion of Crown's VIP business was based on Chinese high-rollers and, following the detentions, it had adopted a very cautious view towards marketing and no longer had a sales force in China.
"Until the detentions are finally resolved, we're basically just stepping back from an aggressive position in the VIP market," he said.
"Wait 'til the China situation is resolved and then we're going to sit down and consider our long-term position."
