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Aristocrat Leisure Ltd announced half-year profit rose due to the recognition of a deferred tax asset. In a Thursday statement, the company confirmed the suspension of its dividend amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The firm reported a statutory half-year profit after tax of nearly AUD1.31 billion (US$856.6 million), up 277.2 percent from the prior-year period. It said such profit was boosted by an income tax benefit of AUD925.2 million.
Aristocrat said that group-wide on a normalised basis – taking account of profit before amortisation of acquired intangibles – its profit after tax was AUD305.9 million, down 14.2 percent from a year earlier.
Group revenue in the six months to March 31 increased 7 percent year-on-year to AUD2.25 billion. Revenue in the land-based segment fell by 6 percent in year-on-year terms.
“Declines across all land‐based businesses in the period,” were “driven mainly by Covid‐19 with customer venue closures globally, leading to halting of capital spend by customers and limited gaming operations revenue during the month of March 2020,” stated the group in commentary on its half-year results.
Aristocrat Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Trevor Croker, said
“Aristocrat delivered a result for the half year to 31 March 2020 that demonstrates our core strengths and the relevance of our product-led strategy, despite the unprecedented challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.” “Our progress in driving share through outstanding product and diversifying revenue streams – including across attractive Digital genres and titles – are also evident in this result.” “Particularly in this uncertain period, we will continue to focus on what we can control and do all we can to protect the health and wellbeing of employees, customers and suppliers.” “We will also continue to drive our strategic advantages in product, with aggressive investment in our core growth engines of Design and Development and User Acquisition to target share and continue to diversify our portfolios.
In Land-based, we will execute our ambitious plans to partner and grow with our customers as conditions improve. And in Digital, we will accelerate execution of our portfolio-based growth strategy as we further mature and scale the organisation.” “Our strong balance sheet, ample liquidity and excellent financial fundamentals position us to emerge from this period strongly, while allowing us full optionality to continue to invest for longterm growth.” “I want to acknowledge and thank our extraordinary team of employees around the world, whose resilience, pragmatism and care for each other throughout this period has been nothing short of inspiring. The energy and culture of Aristocrat people has been particularly striking during these challenging times and places the business in great stead for the future” Mr Croker concluded.
