{"id":13427,"date":"2014-04-23T13:34:27","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T21:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=13427"},"modified":"2018-03-17T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T18:16:15","slug":"igt-dont-cry-for-them-argentina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/igt-dont-cry-for-them-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"IGT: Don’t cry for them Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hart\"<\/a>A 66% drop in profits for International Game Technology<\/strong> was one of yesterday’s headline events. Net revenues were off 15%<\/a>. That $30 million in workforce cuts didn’t come soon enough to save the quarter, evidently. Wall Street<\/strong> analysts were remarkably further sanguine, even when IGT said it was trimming earnings projections still further. Instead of a year-end range of $1.28-$1.38, they’ll be $1-$1.10 or thereabouts. IGT isn’t just losing floor space to smaller competitors. it’s also seeing inroads made in progressive games.\u00a0IGT CEO Patti Hart<\/strong>, however, continues to be vindicated by her acquisition of DoubleDown Casino<\/strong>. It drove 86% of IGT’s comparatively measly revenue growth and will shortly be augmented with the ever-popular Wheel of Fortune<\/strong> game. Hart also did a virtuosic job of managing Wall Street<\/strong>‘s expectations.<\/p>\n

Noting the 20 cents per share earnings, Deutsche Bank<\/strong>‘s Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> was unfazed: “The result compared favorably to our and Consensus Metrix Consensus of $0.19.” Results were “as largely as expected,” Santarelli wrote, despite “weak core top line fundamentals (replacement sales, gaming ops yield, gaming ops install base).” He identified future challenges as a shrinking installed-game base, lower play, a “flattish” replacement cycle and more competition.<\/p>\n

Comparably unsurprised was J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>, who penned that the outcome was “largely consistent with its negative earnings pre-announcement on March 25, 2014.” Those earnings were “driven by sizable and earlier than expected, one-time IP fees in non-machine sales ($0.03 benefit), offset somewhat by higher adjusted operating expenses (DoubleDown marketing).” He saw no reason to adjust his earnings-per-share targets for the remaining quarters of the year, allowing that they “see the stock stuck in narrow range given our views of continued core gaming revenue and gross operating profit declines through F2015.<\/p>\n

“Product sales revenues of $203m exceeded our $180m forecast with North American non-machine sales driving the majority of the upside, driven by one-time IP fees and relatively high levels of parts and conversions revenues. North American replacement units were relatively low at 3,400 units,” Greff added.<\/p>\n

“Soft, but no softer than expected” pretty much summarizes Greff’s entire outlook on IGT, although he opined that stagnation and heightened competition in the American segment (and difficulty in penetrating the Argentina<\/strong> market) “more than offsets attractive growth in its Interactive segment.” Still, those IGT board members have to be saying, “Thank God for DoubleDown.”<\/p>\n

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas<\/strong> has difficulty finding its target customer. But its “george” dog-friendly policies, including dog walkers, ought to get Fido’s loyalty sewn up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 66% drop in profits for International Game Technology was one of yesterday’s headline events. Net revenues were off 15%. That $30 million in workforce cuts didn’t come soon enough to save the quarter, evidently. Wall Street analysts were remarkably … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[98,66,29,22,37,99,8,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13427"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21366,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13427\/revisions\/21366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}