Impairments due to Covid hit DXB Entertainments in H1

Dubai - During closure of parks, enhancement programmes for Motiongate and Bollywood Parks were carried out

DXB Entertainments, which owns and operates region's largest integrated theme parks, on Saturday said its first-half losses increased to Dh822.5 million from the corresponding period's Dh448.3 million due to impairments taken to offset the impact of coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement, the Dubai-listed company said its second-quarter losses grew from Dh232.5 million to Dh257.8 million on year-on-year basis. Its total assets also shrank to Dh8.8 billion by the end of June 30, 2020 as against Dh9.6 billion at the end of December 31, 2019.
DXB Entertainments took non-cash impairment charge of Dh393 million due to closure of parks in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. During the closure of parks, an enhancement programmes for Motiongate and Bollywood Parks were carried out with 12 new rides and attractions scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020.
The region's first Legoland Hotel is also scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The parks are scheduled to reopen on September 23 with additional health and safety measures to ensure safety of visitors and employees of the parks.
"Our contingency plans were successfully implemented to manage the temporary suspension of operations from March 15 onwards, while simultaneously carrying out the enhancement works to prepare the destination for its reopening on September 23," said Mohamed Almulla, CEO and managing director of DXB Entertainments.
"We had a good start to the year and were on track to deliver another profitable quarter. However, the pandemic and subsequent temporary closure of our operations from March 15 adversely impacted our performance for the period," said Almulla.
"To mitigate the impact of the temporary closure, further cost savings and contingency plans were implemented which helped deliver cost savings of 52 per cent or Dh159 million for the half-year period," he added.
DXB Entertainments said it is committed to deliver its Ebitda breakeven, but the timeline has been impacted due to the pandemic. "In the near-term, we expect the visitation to the parks to be driven by the resident market. However, we expect international visitation to gradually improve as global travel and tourism industry recovers from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic," it said in its statement.
After hitting an all-time low of Dh0.095 per share in late March, its shares had recovered to Dh0.121 on Thursday.
- waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com