\nHoward Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/p>\n
\tIncreased business from its three downtown Las Vegas casinos helped Boyd Gaming Corp. offset poor first-quarter results from the company\u2019s regional jurisdictions hurt by weather issues and market softness.<\/p>\n
\tThe Las Vegas-based company said Wednesday it had its best first quarter in five years from Main Street Station, Fremont and California Club, all of which benefited from a cavalcade of market-changing events downtown.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s really a combination of all the things happening downtown combined which has led to a little bit of a renaissance on Fremont Street,\u201d Boyd Gaming CEO Keith Smith following an afternoon conference call with analysts to discuss results for the quarter that ended March 31.<\/p>\n
\tThe opening of the Zappos headquarters in the former City Hall, improvements on East Fremont Street, such as the opening of Container Park, and the opening of the Downtown Grand inside the former Lady Luck, have all worked to boost downtown visitation.<\/p>\n
\tSmith said the opening this week of the Slotzilla zipline attraction on Fremont Street would also bring more visitors downtown, which benefits Boyd Gaming\u2019s properties.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt ends right at the Fremont,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\tBoyd said it net loss for the first quarter was $6.2 million, an improvement from the loss of $7.3 million in the same quarter of 2013. Boyd told investors the company lost 6 cents per share in the first quarter, compared to a 8 cents per share loss a year ago.<\/p>\n
\tTotal revenues companywide declined nearly 4 percent to $708.3 million.<\/p>\n
\tIn addition to weather issues in the Midwest and South, the company\u2019s Borgata resort in Atlantic City recorded a $3.2 million operating loss related to its launch of online gaming operations in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\tFrom its locals segment, which includes the Coast casinos brands and Sam\u2019s Town, Boyd Gaming said its revenues declined less than 1 percent to $151.4 million. However, cash flow from the properties increased 2 percent, the fifth consecutive quarter of cash flow gains.<\/p>\n
\tOn the conference call, Boyd COO Paul Chakmak said the company is looking at upgrading its restaurant offerings in its locals properties. The company renovated hotel rooms at the Gold Coast last year and is now upgrading convention space. Chakmak said Boyd would also finish hotel room renovations at the Orleans and Suncoast.<\/p>\n
\tIn downtown, Boyd Gaming\u2019s net revenue grew 3.1 percent to $55.7 million and cash flow increased 31.2 percent. The company also credited yield improvements in the Boyd\u2019s Hawaiian charter service.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe refinements we have made to our operations are paying clear dividends in all segments of our business, and we expect additional benefits as the economy recovers,\u201d Smith said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\tSmith said Boyd repaid $55 million of debt during the quarter. Boyd\u2019s total debt was $4.37 billion, of which $1.14 billion was related to its purchase of Peninsula Gaming more than a year ago and $809.3 million related to Borgata.<\/p>\n
\tSmith didn\u2019t have much to say about the investment in Boyd in March by a New York hedge fund. The stock purchase led to speculation the investor might seek for Boyd to spin off its casinos into a real estate investment trust.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe spend time thinking of ways to create shareholder value in the company,\u201d Smith said on the conference call. \u201cWe consider all such alternatives, but we don\u2019t comment on them until we make a decision. It\u2019s like making an acquisition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBoyd declined to bid on one of four casino licenses available in update New York but Smith said that process was still early and there was still a possibility Boyd could be brought in as part of a management deal.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howard Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal Increased business from its three downtown Las Vegas casinos helped Boyd Gaming Corp. offset poor first-quarter results from the company\u2019s regional jurisdictions hurt by weather issues and market softness. The Las Vegas-based company said Wednesday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}