Casinos taking hits to their bottom line is not news this year. The coronavirus has proved to be an extremely powerful enemy to the entire gambling industry, which is suffering some of its worst revenue slides on record. Those companies who had the foresight to properly manage their finances over the years are in much better shape to be able to recover, and those who leveraged themselves too thin are scrambling to figure out how to survive. Landing International Development (LDI), the Hong Kong-listed casino operator behind Jeju Shinwa World in South Korea, has done well with its response to the global pandemic. While it has suffered losses like the rest, it reports that its net loss was only a fraction of what it could have been if it had been slower to react.
According to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from last Friday, LDI saw a net loss of a little more than $102.2 million over the first half of the year. This was 5.2% lower than what was reported for the same period last year, and comes after the company’s aggregate revenue dropped 24.5% in the six-month period. That figure came in at $33.81 million.
The winning formula included a mix of increased revenue in its gaming operations, decreased operating expenses and the cutting of some leases last year that resulted in LDI not having as much unnecessary baggage. The operator added in its filing, “In response to the decreasing number of cross-border travellers [due to the coronavirus], we concentrated on the local market by offering discounted family packages and promotion events … our enhanced marketing strategy has been rewarded a satisfactory response with improving hotel occupancy rate since May 2020.”
LDI’s gaming revenue, despite the ongoing COVID-19 debacle, jumped 26.6% year-on-year during the first half of 2020, reaching $13.04 million. This caused a gaming business segment loss of $9.16 million compared to the segmental loss of $27.38 million it reported for the same period last year. Non-gaming revenue, however, dropped by a massive 39.8%, only reaching $20.78 million. That decline was a direct result of the attack from COVID-19 and the subsequent loss of traffic at the company’s properties.