Wynn Macau says it is losing more than US$2 million a day amid casino closures
- Wynn Resorts records net loss of US$72.9 million for fourth quarter
- Casinos will close for 15 days to contain the spread of the coronavirus after a hotel worker was infected locally
Wynn Macau, one of Macau’s six gaming concessionaires, said the closure of the special administrative region’s casinos was costing it between US$2.4 million and US$2.6 million a day, most of it towards maintaining more than 12,000 staff.
The two hotels under the company, Wynn Peninsula and Wynn Palace (Cotai), as well as a couple of restaurants were open for the “few remaining guests” in Macau, Matt Maddox, the chief executive of Wynn Resorts, which operates these hotels along with Wynn Las Vegas and Wynn Boston Harbour, said in a fourth quarter earnings conference call on Friday.
The casinos will close for 15 days to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus after a hotel worker was infected locally, Ho Iat-seng, Macau’s leader, said on Tuesday. In a note published just after this announcement, investment research and institutional asset management company Sanford C. Bernstein said the news around the coronavirus and Macau gaming would get bleaker before it got any better, with stocks likely to be under pressure in the short term.
In a sign of near-term challenges the casino operators face, Melco Resorts said on Friday it was stopping a planned share purchase of Australian gaming and entertainment group Crown Resorts, which would have doubled its shareholding. Melco said, in light of the shutdown, it would “reassess all noncore investments to be made in 2020”.