Ardent plunges into red

THE fortunes of Dreamworld operator Ardent Leisure keeps taking hits.

The Sydney-based company yesterday unveiled a $62.6 million loss largely due to the Dreamworld tragedy last year and it gets worse with five of its bowling and games centres in Houston, Texas, damaged by Hurricane Harvey.

Ardent operates 38 Main Event Centres in the US, with 16 located in Texas.

It said based on an early assessment of damage, three of the centres were expected to reopen within a week and a fourth in two months.

However, the fifth centre has received extensive damage and it is not known when it could open again.

An additional three centres outside of Houston are being assessed for damage, although that is likely to be minor.

“This represents the current preliminary assessment of the Main Event team who are managing the situation on the ground, but remains subject to change based on further evaluation work and changes in prevailing weather and environmental conditions,” Ardent said in a statement.

The performance of the centres has been a relatively bright spot for the company – revenue rose close to 30 per cent to $US226.2m ($A286.469) in FY17 although earnings were up by just 5.6 per cent.

The bad news from the US comes ahead of a key meeting next week called by 10.9 per cent shareholder Ariadne to vote on Ariadne’s proposal to appoint Brad Richmond and Dr Gary Weiss to the board.