Century Casinos in Discussions Regarding Foreign Properties

Century Casinos CNTY is a casino operator headquartered in Colorado. As of Century Casino's last 10-K filing date, the company reported operating twelve cruise ship based casinos and five other casino properties. At that time, the company wholly owned two casinos in Alberta, Canada and two in Colorado. In addition, the company had a 33.3% stake in Casinos Poland, which operates seven other casinos. Before the end of 2012, Century Casinos may hit new milestones in its foreign expansion efforts. “We are working on a couple of growth projects both in North America as well as Asia,” said Peter Hoetzinger, Century Casino's Co-Chief Executive Officer, in a phone interview with Benzinga. Hoetzinger said he expects that one the company's growth projects will be formally announced before the end of the year. Nevertheless, if no new projects come to fruition, the company would consider returning some cash to shareholders, said Hoetzinger. “We are negotiating in advanced discussions about some properties,” Hoetzinger said in regards to the company's foreign expansion. Hoetzinger said Canada, the Philippines and Vietnam are high on the company's list. He would not, however, name potential cities specifically. “Prices [for casino properties] have come down more in Canada and other places, but not yet in the US,” described Hoetzinger. On May 29, Century Casinos announced a $27 million line of credit from the Bank of Montreal. Hoetzinger said this line of credit might be used for Century Casinos' foreign expansion efforts. Shares of Century Casinos closed around 3.7% lower Monday, bringing the company's market capitalization close to $62.3 million. Moreover, shares of Century Casinos have returned approximately 3.2% year-to-date.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I did not own shares of any companies mentioned in this article.