Summit Ascent Holdings Limited is a Hong Kong-listed company offering casino options. According to a filing, Friday, March 23, 2018, Summit Ascent has an increase of 46 percent in their revenue. The company believes the uptick in revenue comes from Tigre de Cristal casino in Russia’s the Far East.
Tigre de Cristal was in the news last year regarding tax hikes that the executives did not want to pay. But, the tax rates do not seem to be affecting the parent companies revenue.
In the regulatory filing, Summit Ascent stated they had net revenue of $470.6 million Hong Kong dollars, which is about $60 million in USD. This revenue is up from 2016 by about 46 percent. The overall profit for Summit in 2017 was $1.76 million. The difference in net income versus gain is how much the company kept versus what it may need to pay for overhead, starting new locations, and other expenses.
Kuo Jen Hao, the chairman of Summit Ascent said the surge is positively related to Tigre de Cristal. The casino had property earnings before taxation, interest, amortization, and depreciation of $173.7 million Hong Kong dollars. It was up 32 percent on a year on year examination. Overall the rolling chip turnover increased from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion between 2016 and 2017.
The mass table revenue was up 13 percent, with slot machine income up 21%. What Kuo found most impressive—the ownership changes that occurred during Summit Ascent and the COO change at Tigre de Cristal did not affect the income. Even the tax changes and geopolitical upheaval did not create a loss as one might expect.
Lawrence Ho, the casino mogul, sold his 20 million shares in Summit Ascent in December 2017. He is investing elsewhere. The company making the sale was Quick Glitter Limited. It is a company entirely owned by Ho. He sold 238.6 million shares, which represented 16.03 percent of Summit Ascent’s share capital.
Taxation Changes for Summit
Ho left Summit at the same time Duma announced the increase in taxes through the Russian Federation. Primorye gaming zone, which is where Tigre de Cristal is located did not hike gambling taxes due to worries future investors would not be willing to bring in their international casino brands.
Grant Govertsen, Union Gaming analyst, said Summit Ascent did exceed certain expectations particularly with the revenue and property-level EBITDA. Union Gaming has lowered their forecast for 2018 from 16 percent to 9 percent given the significant increase for 2017.
