From the sidelines, page-22

From where I sit, there are a number of reasons why the share price has been hit. In no particular order;

1. Tigers & Flies corruption crackdown campaign that has been raging on China for almost 2 years, and is now seemingly taking affect in the casinos of Macau.
2. The always bubbling South China Sea shenanigans that have the potential to close the border at any time.
3. Rumoured tax law changes increasing the Vietnamese government stake in gambling.
4. The transfer of shares from a director to an entity who does not have to update the market of a sell, leading people to suspicion.
5.The absence of an operating update, leading people to expect the worst.
6. A disappointing new casino acquisition location (from a country perspective at least).


Personally, i think;

1. This is actually a good thing as high rollers looking to avoid public scrutiny are piling into Las Vegas, Australian, Filipino and Vietnamese (?) casinos.
2. Has been quiet for a while now and some progress has been made in setting up a 'mechanism' by which the two countries can discuss disputes, without sending in gun ships. Whilst I don't think this will mean the end of disputes, it should smooth out the drama and associated stock market shock.
3. This will probably happen in my opinion but it will also happen with other laws changing in our favour. This is why....the Vietnamese government want to capture the money that they are otherwise losing to Cambodian casinos. They will do this by, reducing business tax, allowing locals to gamble and then increasing tax on winnings (as proposed). I'm not going to get into the argument of how they will enforce a 'winnings tax' but I do think they will try. This WILL have a negative impact on traffic but it WILL ALSO be offset by the flood of additional traffic thanks to locals accessing local casinos.
4. Smells suspicious to me but it could be any number of a dozen other perfectly legitimate reasons. Divorce, wifey wants a new house and director doesn't want to disclose a big sale, tax reasons, justt keeping the wifey happy etc. NO point making a decision about pure speculation so I won't/haven't.
5. REALLY ANNOYING but the company don't have a history of providing updates. If they had 'missed' an update, I'd be really worried. The words "good growth" don't inspire a huge amount of confidence when you are coming off a base of zero growth, but it is better than nothing. Annoyed, uninspired but not worried.
6. Cambodia seemed like an odd choice at face value but after looking deeper over the last few days, it appears to make sense. It is a country that is VERY open to gambling revenue and so is probably more stable (from a regulatory perspective) than Vietnam. My hope is that the casino is in the West, tapping the Thai market. Everything else, price, size, condition, specific location etc. I fully trust the professionals.


I have doubled my holdings in the low 70s. My average is no 81c.

All else being equal, I'll be holding firm until the Feb results.