Coronavirus to hit Crown results

The coronavirus outbreak will have an adverse impact on Australian operator Crown Resorts’ profits, the company announced as it presented its half-year results to December 31, 2019.

A slump in Chinese VIP high rollers also impacted the period, but the company stated that worse was to come with the coronavirus affecting the next period.

Normalised net profits, removing a variance in win rates, fell by 11 per cent to US$115.62m. EBITDA was up 14 per cent to $298.8m. Crown, 37 per cent owned by James Packer, now faces the impact of travel restrictions intended to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.

The news from Crown follows Hong Kong’s Melco Resorts dumping a plan to buy a 10 per cent stake in Crown from Packer.