Macau Casino Company Studio City Jumps in U.S. Trading Debut
Studio City International Holdings raised $359 million in its U.S. IPO, pricing its shares at the top of the Macau casino
(Bloomberg) -- Macau casino and resort company Studio City International Holdings Ltd. rose as much as 48 percent after raising $359 million in its U.S. initial public offering.
Studio City sold 28.75 million American depositary shares for $12.50 each Wednesday after pricing them at $10.50 to $12.50, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The shares opened at $16.50 Thursday and closed up 24 percent to $15.50 in New York, giving the company a market value of $1.15 billion.
The listing may provide a lift for Macau’s gaming industry, which has been beset by increased government scrutiny, potential economic fallout of China-U.S. trade tensions and, in September, Typhoon Mangkhut.
An index of six Macau gaming companies has fallen 27 percent this year. Las Vegas Sands Corp., the biggest gaming company on U.S. exchanges, has fallen 19 percent, while second-ranked MGM Resorts International is down 18 percent and Wynn Resorts Ltd. has plunged 31 percent.
The Studio City casino in Macau has 250 gaming tables and about 970 machines, as well as VIP gambling facilities, a hotel, family entertainment center, nightclub and 5,000-seat arena, according to the company’s IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company lost $15 million on revenue of $282 million in the first half of the year, compared with a loss of $47 million on revenue of $254 million for the first six months of 2017, according to the filing‘1.
The public listing was to be accompanied by a private placement to Melco International, an affiliate of the company that operates Studio City. The American depositary shares represent four ordinary Class A shares, according to the filing. With the IPO, Melco Resorts, through another entity, was slated to control at least 50.1 percent of the shareholder voting interest of Studio City.
The offering was led by Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and Morgan Stanley. The shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MSC.
--With assistance from Alex Barinka.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Hytha in San Francisco at mhytha@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Matthew Monks
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