Belle profit drops to P752M in H1

MANILA, Philippines - Leisure estate and gaming firm Belle Corp. reported a net income of P751.84 million in the first half, down by 35 percent from P1.15 billion in the same period last year.

The decline was due to the reversal of investment loss reserves by subsidiary Premium Leisure Corp. in 2014.

Operating revenues, on the other hand, grew by over 250 percent to P2.8 billion, boosted by earnings from the lease of the City of Dreams Manila property to Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd.

The growth in revenues was also attributed to  higher real estate sales and increased income from PLC and Pacific Online Systems Corp.

PLC has an operating agreement with MCE that accords it a share of gaming revenues or earnings at City of Dreams Manila.

Gaming revenue share from City of Dreams amounted to P360.68 million.

On the back of  higher revenues, Belle’s board of directors approved the declaration of a cash dividend of P0.095 per share, for a total dividend payment of approximately P1 billion.  The dividends are  payable on Aug. 28 to shareholders on record as of Aug. 14.

Belle’s principal assets include land and buildings located in Pagcor’s 100-hectare Entertainment City in Parañaque City, which are being leased on a long-term basis to MCE.

City of Dreams Manila includes approximately two hectares of gaming space, approximately 900 hotel rooms operated under three hotel brands (Crown, Hyatt and Nobu), the DreamPlay indoor amusement park, and about two hectares of restaurant and retail space.

Apart from this, Belle also owns significant real estate assets in and around Tagaytay City consisting of premium residential properties for sale and approximately 800 hectares of land held for future development, which are near two exclusive world-class golf clubs and one country club built by the company.