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Boyd’s loss, The stock of Boyd Gaming Corp. slipped 3.8 percent today after the company reported a fourth-quarter loss and sharply reduced expectations for earnings in the current quarter.
outlook
sink stock
The CEO blames the
poor results on the two
Sam's Town propertiesBy Tim Ruel
Star-Bulletin
Las Vegas-based Boyd, which owns hotel-casinos popular with Hawaii travelers, reported a loss of $4.66 million for the fourth quarter, down from a profit of $9.36 million in the same quarter of 1999.
Per-share earnings fell to a loss of 7 cents a share from a gain of 15 cents a share in the same period last year. The average estimate of Wall Street analysts who follow the company was for a 6 cents a share loss.
Net revenues dropped a fraction of a percentage point to $260.7 million in the quarter from $262.3 million in the year-earlier period.
Boyd blamed its net loss in part on the cost of renovating two Sam's Town hotels. The company expects to take several quarters to recover.
Boyd also said it expects single-digit earnings per share in the first quarter, well below the average estimate of 16 cents a share by three analysts.
Investors bid the company's stock down 15 cents to $3.80 today on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock traded as low as $3.76 earlier in the session.
Despite the company's fourth-quarter loss, Boyd saw strong results from its Hawaii segment. The company's downtown Las Vegas hotels popular with Hawaii residents -- the California, the Fremont, and Main Street Station -- showed combined occupancy of 95 percent in the quarter and a 5.2 percent increase in revenues to $58.3 million from $55.4 million.
Included in the results for the downtown properties was $10.5 million in sales at Vacations Hawaii, the Honolulu subsidiary that sells Las Vegas tour packages. That was up 18 percent from $8.9 million in 1999's fourth quarter.