Profit up at Century Casinos, despite sluggish Poland performance

First quarter financial results published by Colorado-based operator Century Casinos show that had to rely upon profit growth from both its US and cruise-ship venues to offset falling earnings from its Polish business.

Overall, the company’s net revenue to March 31 stood at $32.5m (E28.7m), which was a 7.5 per cent improvement on the PCP. That equated to adjusted EBITDA of $5.6m (E5m), an 18 per cent rise on Q1 2015.

But net operating revenue from Century’s Polish investment was down 9 per cent to $12.3m (E10.9m), with profit dropping 8 per cent to $13.5m (E11.9m).

Whilst headquartered in the US, Century Casinos was established over 20 years ago by former executive of Casinos Austria. In 2007, it paid $8.7m (E7.7m) to acquire 33 per cent in Casinos Poland. Century now has a two thirds stake in the Polish operator – which runs nine casinos in the cities of Warsaw, Wroclaw, Katowice, Plock, Krakow, Lodz and Poznan.

The European slowdown went unremarked in the company’s official statement accompanying its results.

“We are pleased with our performance for the quarter, including the 61 per cent growth in earnings from operations,” said Century Casinos joint CEOs Erwin Haitzmann and Peter Hoetzinger. “[This] reflects the results of our business development efforts as well as the underlying strength and stability of our geographically diverse portfolio of casino assets.”