No wonder Melco Crown's share price is trading at $US3.83 ($5.58), having slumped as low as $US2.85 last month. Melco is burdened by $US1.75 billion in loans - soon to grow to $US2 billion - and management says the Crown Macau casino is not pulling in enough cash to support current and expected debt service requirements.
A Merrill Lynch analyst, Dan Renshaw, said this was a worry, but he emphasised that none of this debt could be sheeted home to locally listed Crown, which owns 37 per cent of Melco Crown.
He has also ruled out Melco Crown as a buyer if rival Las Vegas Sands had to sell assets in Macau because of its cash crisis, which has it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Citi said that Crown's purchase of a group of Las Vegas casinos known as the Cannery had been delayed three months to next March because of sluggish regulatory approvals.
It comes as more US rivals - this time Trump Entertainment Resorts and Harrah's Entertainment, in which Crown has a minority stake - reported quarterly losses.
(Credit: The Age)
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