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Strong business from Hawaii countered some of Boyd Gaming Co.'s third-quarter negatives but it was not enough to prevent the Las Vegas-based company from showing a severe drop in earnings. Hawaii tourists
unable to bail
out Boyd GamingBy Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin
Boyd reported a profit of $3.7 million, or 6 cents a share, for the latest quarter, down 64 percent from $10.3 million, or 17 cents a share, in the third quarter of last year. The per-share results were well below Wall Street expectations. Quarterly revenues of $270.8 million were up 13.1 percent from a year-earlier $239.5 million, the company said yesterday.
Boyd shares closed down 13 cents today at $4, a 52-week low.
The biggest part of Boyd's profit drop came from the January 2000 ending of a contract to manage the Blue Chip Casino in Las Vegas, which had brought Boyd a $13.5 million profit in the 1999 quarter.
Boyd also had declines at its two Sam's Town properties, where construction and renovation cut into access to slot machines and other gaming.
However the downtown Las Vegas hotels popular with Hawaii residents -- the California Hotel & Casino, the Fremont Hotel & Casino and Main Street Station -- together showed 96 percent occupancy through the quarter and a 0.9 percent increase in revenues, to $54.3 million in the latest quarter from $53.8 million in the 1999 period.
Included in the results for the downtown properties was $10.9 million in sales in the latest quarter at Vacations Hawaii, the Honolulu subsidiary that sells Las Vegas tour packages. That was an increase of 11.2 percent from Vacations Hawaii revenues of $9.8 million in the year-earlier period.