By VEN SREENIVASAN


SOMETIMES the headlines don't tell the whole story. A case in point is the recent results of Genting Hong Kong.


The company recently reported a first-half net profit of US$12 million, reversing a loss of US$34.5 million during the same period last year (though Genting HK was a different animal then). But after stripping out US$14.4 million in one-off gains, Genting HK turned in a core net loss of US$3 million for the first six months of this year, a figure which fell far short of analysts' estimates of some US$96 million.

But what the market appears to have missed is the fact that this company made a huge turnaround during its second quarter.

Genting HK, once known as Star Cruises, is a three-pronged US$1.9 billion market-cap gaming entity comprising Star Cruises in Asia, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) in the US, and Resorts World Manila (RWM) in the Philippines.

The interesting bits about the company emerged during a briefing provided by management a day after the Aug 28 results.

During the briefing, the company's management said gaming turnover numbers had exceeded all expectations during the second quarter, and hinted that the numbers in July and August continued to take off. Analysts and some of the more privileged investors were told that on some days, wins at its Manila casino could match any other casino in the world, based on return on capital invested.

The best daily win last month exceeded US$7 million, the equivalent of S$10 million. This should be a familiar number to anyone who recently followed the results unveiled by Genting Singapore's Resorts World Sentosa, which reported over S$900 million in revenue for the quarter, or S$300 million a month, which translates to S$10 million in takings per day.

The interesting thing is that RWM achieved this with minimal marketing effort and without the huge capital outlays of the Singapore casinos.

The casino, which is still in its early stages of development, currently operates 199 tables and 1,200 slot machines. This is expected to increase by 50 per cent when it opens its third gaming floor in the final quarter of this year. But RWM has also identified a second site, and has a gaming licence allowing it to operate some 2,000 tables and 7,000 slot machines over the two sites.

In comparison, RWS and Marina Bay Sands each have about 500 tables and 1,300 slot machines.

There is a nice parallel here with Genting Singapore which, after a somewhat undistinguished start marked by a huge writedown of its London gaming assets, took off during its second quarter to post S$396 million in earnings to end-June.

But Genting HK has several advantages over its Singapore cousin and Malaysian parent.

For one thing, the captive Philippines market is young and huge, with its population of almost 100 million. And as the only luxury casino in the country, it faces minimal competition.

Meanwhile, reports emerged yesterday about the Genting group entering into in discussions with the Philippines government on the possible purchase of the latter's state-owned gaming assets. These assets, held under state-controlled PagCor, comprise over 40 small casinos which raked in almost S$900 million in income during 2008. If this latest deal does happen, it could significantly enlarge Genting HK's gaming portfolio and revenues.

Meanwhile, through its Star Cruises, which has been plying the Hong Kong-Taiwan route since May 2009, Genting HK is laying the foundations for its involvement in Taiwan's ambitious integrated resort project. The Taipei government has reportedly already appointed consultants to look into this.

Numbers are important and do tell a story.

But sometimes, looking beyond just historical earnings data, and listening to guidance provided by management, can provide more colour and clarity about the outlook and prospects for a company. In the case of Genting HK, the picture appears a lot more colourful and exciting than its first-half earnings numbers suggested.

我老眼昏花，看错了以下文章：


http://fanglinsg.blog.hexun.com/55604572_d.html
确实是跟新加坡政府有合约在先：十年内不会再批建第三座赌场

以为Genting不会在Manila建赌场， 在0.285时全部卖出。
今早才发现错了！

胡立陽：我教大家一個農夫播種術，這是我在華爾街發明的。我當時發明這個農夫播種術之後，媒體稱我是股市神童。這個方法就是，一個股票買進以後，20塊買進向下，不管怎麼樣，一定設一個止損點，3%。20塊跌6毛錢，只要不到19塊4，這股票永遠留在手上。假設這股票你買了以後往上漲，遊戲就開始了，只要沒往上漲3%，你就給它加碼一手，一開始只能買一手。20塊6的時候，加碼一手，到21塊2，再加一手，那麼你就這樣玩這個遊戲，然後跌下來，跌3%，你就減一手。以每天收盤價為準。第二天一開盤就加一手，用市價，然後跌回來到3%，你就從最後一天收盤價為準，跌3%就減一手，就這麼加加減減，我發現一只股票假設從20塊漲到60塊，漲了3倍，那麼我的經驗告訴我，你一手一手加變成37手，這不可思議，然後股價漲到3倍，真的。』

我曾买HiapHoe. 0.10 起买，0.14加。 0.24加倍。0.45再加。 分红股后0.50左右全部买出。赚了很多。

A much stronger 2H10 unfolding. We expect GENHK to deliver a net profit of US$77m, driven by strong 3Q10 seasonal demand at both NCL and Star Cruises, and with RWM steamrolling out fat returns. Earnings drivers for the cruise business are: a) rising ticket prices at both NCL (+5.8% yoy for NCL in 1H10) and Star Cruises, b) rising occupancy rates of >100% for non-day cruise routes, c) absence of 1H10’s pre-operating cost and maiden contribution for the EPIC, d) increased ship utilisation at Star Cruises with new route deployment (Hong Kong-Taiwan-Japan cruise) and bareboat charter with NCL for Norwegian Sky (1 Jul 10 to 31 Dec 12) for a total charter hire fee of US$53.4m, and e) normalised luck factor at the cruise casino operation.
RWM’s rising attractiveness. 50%-owned RWM performed in line, contributing about US$10.2m to GENHK’s net profit, against our full-year forecast of US$39.1m. The payback for this >US$400m project has been so lucrative that its net debt has fallen to about US$50m.
RWM could top our 2010 net profit expectation of US$78m should it continue to deliver a gross gaming win of at least US$1.5m (which we estimate it has achieved in Jun-Aug 10) compared with just over US$1.0m in 1H10. We understand that Jul 10’s annualised net earnings reached US$160m, and RWM also clocked in the highest daily win last week exceeding US$7.0m. For 2011, we expect RWM to deliver a net profit of US$215.5m assuming a daily win of almost US$1.6m and EBITDA margin of 41%.
Potentially a big beneficiary of Manila. There are talks of the Philippine’s new administration exploring the possibility of outlawing slot parlour operations at non-tourist sites. If true, RWM could gain market share in the lucrative market. RWM’s slot operation (over 1,200 machines), which accounts for an estimated one-third of RWM’s bottom line, could gain significantly. Presently, non-casino slot parlours operate about 5,000 slot machines. RWM could eventually attract 20,000-25,000 visitors daily, up from 9,000 presently, after the integrated resort-casino’s grand opening at end-Nov 10. Potentially another crowd booster, there is a possibility that city check-in could be introduced for the nearby local (budget) air terminal.
No competition in sight. It appears that the other three licence concessionaries at the Manila Bay mega casino development have initiated little construction works (if at all), thus giving RWM more time to harvest the burgeoning demand integrated resort-casinos.
BUY on weakness; maintain our RNAV-based target price of US$0.31, which implies target 2011F fully-diluted PE and adjusted EV/EBITDA of 12.9x and 6.7x respectively.
Share Price Catalyst - strong earnings growth, dividend policy, future listing of NCL and RWM.