Century Casinos praised ongoing development projects in Missouri and expressed an expectation of “meaningful growth” following a recent Nevada purchase.
The purchase of the operations of Nugget casino Resort from Marnell Gaming was made for around $100m. This follows the $95m spent to buy 50% of Smooth bourbon which owned the building and land on which the gambling venue is situated.
The Nugget, Smooth Bourbon and Century have signed a lease agreement to rent the building and land for $15m annually. Smooth Bourbon is also consolidated under Century.
The casino is located in Sparks Nevada and has 71,200 sq. ft. of space that houses 892 slots machines and 29 tables games.
Century Casinos’ co-chief executive officers Erwin Haitzmann, and Peter Hoetzinger stated that construction of their hotel in Cape Girardeau and land-based casino in Caruthersville continues.
We completed the acquisition of Nugget Casino Resort in April 2023. We have already begun the integration of Nugget operations, and we expect this acquisition to grow in the future.
“We expect an immediate impact on net income, because we have been paying interest for the $100m we borrowed from April 2022 in escrow to finance the OpCo purchase without net income to support it.”
The operator announced its performance for the first quarter of the year, where revenue increased five percent year-on-year from $103.1m to $108.5m (2020: $103.1m), driven by increases in all geographic segments.
The United States is still the leader, with a 2 per cent increase to $66.36m (in 2021: $65.24m), followed by Poland at 25.57m ($21.82m in 2022) and Canada at $16.5m ($15.9m in 2020).
The net loss was $1.24m, down from $218,000, due to the decline in corporate and other reporting segments. Adjusted EBITDA increased nine per cent, to $26m (2020: $23.82m).
Haitzmann & Hoetzinger noted that “we are pleased to see each of our segments reportable had revenue growth in the first three months of 2023 as compared to 2022’s first quarter.”
