Bloomberry posts FY23 profit of P9.5-B (UP 85%)

Bloomberry [BLOOM 11.38, down 1.9%] [link], the gaming arm of Enrique Razon’s diversified empire, posted a FY23 consolidated net income of P9.5 billion, up 85% over its FY22 net income of P5.1 billion. Consolidated net revenues were up 35% to P48.4 billion, while total gross gaming revenues (GGR) were up 16% to P58.3 billion. BLOOM said that its FY23 GGR “has recovered to 97% of the 2019 level”, which BLOOM attributed to the success of its “domestic-focused mass tables” and “Electronic Gaming Machines” segments. BLOOM said that their combined performance is now “116% of pre-pandemic levels”.

MB bottom-line: For BLOOM, the pandemic’s silver lining (if there is one) is that it forced the company to diversify its client base. The junkets of fat cat foreign gamblers from SE Asia were no longer pouring in to play at the VIP tables, and the uncertainty surrounding the length and breadth of Duterete’s damaging COVID lockdowns forced BLOOM to not only search for new income streams but to also consider a future where those new income streams were the primary driver(s) of profitability. That’s when BLOOM (and many of the other gaming companies in the Philippines) focused on the travel and gaming appetites of Filipinos to court domestic gamblers and grow a “stay-cation” industry that could grow and support the facilities while waiting on the junkets to return (if ever). Now BLOOM is benefitting from the gradual return of those junkets and fat cat gamblers, while also benefitting from the robust growth (and subsequent income) from the domestic “mass market” tables segment that it spent so much time to develop. It’s like BLOOM was reading all of those forum posts during the lockdown that said some version of the same “investing in yourself is the best investment one can make”, and instead of learning to write its name left-handed or to juggle pineapples, it decided to learn how to get more money out of all us non-fat cats. Mission accomplished? I’m not jealous. I mean, at least I can juggle pineapples. I doubt Mr. Razon can do that.

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