Hold your bets on Genting
Hold your bets on Genting
http://www.theedgemarkets.com.sg/sg/article/hold-your-bets-genting
SINGAPORE (Jan 13): Genting Singapore may be preparing for a potential casino bid in Japan by selling its stake in Resorts World Jeju for US$411 million ($587 million) and recognising a gain of $93 million, but CIMB is not placing its bets on the casino operator just yet.
In fact, CIMB has downgraded the stock from a “buy” to a “hold” recommendation, with a raised target price of 93 cents to account for the higher cash balance from the sale proceeds.
To be sure, CIMB’s analyst Jessalynn Chen is in fact “positive” on Genting’s sale of RWJ, given that the recent restrictions on Chinese nationals’ outbound travel to South Korea would be problematic for the casino as Chinese tourists were its main target audience.
At the same time, Chen noted that Genting had been able to monetise its investment in RWJ without facing operational risks, and will now boast a net cash balance of $4.2billion “which will strengthen its position against rivals in a casino bid in Japan”.
So what’s the problem?
Chen points out that Japan will take a longer time to come to fruition, as a bill regarding casino laws still remains to be debated in parliament in 2017, and the Japanese cities like Tokyo, Sapporo, Osaka and Yokohama will still need to submit proposals to host the integrated resort. The winning city would then be able to call for a tender to seek suitable companies to build and manage the integrated resort.
“Even if Genting Singapore made a successful bid, we think it could incur startup costs prior to the IR opening, which we believe would be in 2022 to 2023 at the earliest,” said Chen in a note on Wednesday.
In the meantime, the group appears unlikely to perform better in the coming quarter, after the group recorded an EBITDA margin of 40.2% in 3QFY16, the highest in 9 quarters from cutting utility expenses, reducing manpower requirements and improving its processes.
“We think the bulk of cost savings have been recognised in 3QFY16, with little room to cut costs further. Bad debt charges have also reached a healthy level of S$50m, leaving little room for improvement,” said Chen.
Shares in Genting Singapore are trading 0.5 cent lower at 91.5 cents on Friday.