Analysts at Moody\u2019s Investors Service have downgraded NagaCorp’s corporate family rating from ‘B1’ to ‘B2’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cambodia.- Moody\u2019s Investor Services has downgraded the corporate family rating <\/strong>of NagaCorp Ltd due to a slower-than-expected operational recovery. It believes the company will likely require external financing to repay its outstanding US$545m bond maturing in July 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moody\u2019s analyst Yu Sheng Tay <\/strong>also stated: “The refinancing risk is exacerbated by tight funding conditions in the current economic environment and limited sources of liquidity for the company.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moody’s downgraded its senior unsecured rating of NagaCorp\u2019s US dollar bond from ‘B1’ to ‘B2’. It added that its rating outlook for the casino operator remained \u2018negative\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last June, NagaCorp completed its issue of US$200m in 7.95 per cent senior notes<\/a> with a July 6, 2024 maturity. In August, the company repurchased <\/strong>notes of an aggregate principal amount of US$1.6m, representing approximately 0.29 per cent of the aggregate principal amount of the 2024 Senior Notes<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The company also repurchased part of its 2024 senior notes in September and early October, involving an aggregate amount of just over US$5.2m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts said that while NagaCorp expected to generate sufficient operating cash flow to support its liquidity needs through June 2024, the casino operator may require external financing to repay its dollar bonds. Moody’s forecast that NagaCorp will generate earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of approximately US$252m in 2022, followed by EBITDA of US$352m in 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n NagaCorp<\/a> has recently reported that gross gaming revenue (GGR) was down 16.3 per cent<\/strong> quarter-on-quarter from US$127.4m to US$106.6m in the third quarter of the year. For the first nine months of the year, it reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of US$183.2m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Moody’s, NagaCorp’s earnings in 2022 and 2023 will be still significantly lower than in 2019, when NagaCorp reported net income of about US$521.3m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As previously reported by Focus Gaming News, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training has issued a statement it denying that it\u2019s responsible for stalled negotiations over the Nagaworld <\/strong>labour dispute. The ministry responded after being accused of inaction and indifference to the drawn-out conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It said that since the parties were not willing to participate in collective labour resolution procedures, their differences will probably need to be settled in court<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ministry added that 244 out of 373 former employees have accepted compensation offered by the company. A meeting has been scheduled for October 6 to mediate a solution for the remaining layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NagaWorld employees began their strike on December 18 2021 in protest against NagaCorp\u2019s layoffs and pay cuts<\/a> that aimed to improve cost efficiency<\/strong> due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Government-mediated negotiations<\/a> with the casino operator have failed to bear fruit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Analysts at Moody\u2019s Investors Service have downgraded NagaCorp’s corporate family rating from ‘B1’ to ‘B2’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Moody's Investors Service has downgraded NagaCorp's corporate family rating from 'B1' to 'B2' due to a slower-than-expected operational recovery and significant refinancing risk for its US$545m bond maturing in July 2024. The negative outlook persists, exacerbated by tight funding conditions and lower projected EBITDA compared to pre-pandemic levels. Concurrently, NagaCorp continues to navigate a protracted labour dispute at NagaWorld.","focusai_entities":"Moody\u2019s Investors Service, NagaCorp Ltd, Yu Sheng Tay, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training","focusai_location":"Cambodia","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.75), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (0.98), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"NagaCorp Refinancing Strategy?","query":"What specific external financing mechanisms is NagaCorp exploring to address the US$545m bond maturity in July 2024, and what are the projected costs of such capital given current market conditions?"},{"label":"Impact on Cambodian GGR?","query":"How might NagaCorp's slower-than-expected operational recovery and ongoing labour disputes impact the overall GGR trajectory and regulatory stability of the Cambodian iGaming market?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[2336],"class_list":["post-34389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-nagacorp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34427,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34389\/revisions\/34427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Cambodian government denies it\u2019s holding up NagaWorld labour disputes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n