Foxwoods posts gain in revenue
Earnings for the quarter increased 8.9 percent
Foxwoods Resort Casino generated $229.3 million in net revenues in the three months that ended Dec. 31, a 2.6 percent increase over the same period the previous year, according to a quarterly report posted online this week.
Gaming revenues of $195.4 million were up 1.8 percent while nongaming revenues of $57 million were up 4.2 percent, the report shows.
Foxwoods’ EBITDA, an earnings measure favored by casino management and investors who analyze gaming enterprises, was $33.6 million for the quarter, an increase of 8.9 percent. Foxwoods defines EBITDA as net income, or profit, minus certain non-recurring expenses plus interest charges, federal and state taxes, depreciation, amortization and other non-cash expenses.
The gains, which came in the first quarter of Foxwoods’ current fiscal year, follow year- over- year revenue increases in the gaming enterprise’s 2015 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
In Foxwoods’ last annual report, posted in December, its owner, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, announced it had extended a forbearance agreement with senior lenders through Dec. 31, 2016. The agreement had been struck in September 2014, soon after the tribe violated the terms of a 2013 debt restructuring. The tribe defaulted on its longterm debt in 2009.
Foxwoods, in its latest quarterly report, attributes its net revenue growth to a higher table games “hold,” which is the percentage of wagers the casino keeps after paying out prizes. Its table- games hold was 18.9 percent for the quarter, up from 16.7 percent the same quarter the previous year. Slot-machine revenues increased two-tenths of a percent.
Gaming accounted for 77.4 percent of the casino’s gross revenue, with the nongaming categories of food- and- beverage, hotel and “retail, en- tertainment and other” accounting for the other 22.6 percent.
The casino’s payroll costs were lower by $1.7 million, or 2.2 percent. Foxwoods employed the equivalent of about 5,000 full- time workers, or “FTEs,” during the quarter, about 3 percent less than the year before.
During the quarter, transfers to the tribe’s general fund totaled $26.7 million.