The decline in normalised earnings below the previous year was attributed to the dilutionary earnings impact of the sale of a 50% stake in PBL Media and PBL’s share of the start-up losses incurred from investment in the Macau joint venture MPEL. Operating cash flow generated by PBL businesses was A$724 million compared to A$746 million in 2006. Executive Chairman of PBL, James Packer, commented that the past year had been a very significant one for PBL.

He described highlights as the sale of all but 25% of PBL Media, subject to approval; the successful completion of last December’s IPO of the Macau gaming joint venture; the expansion of the International gaming Division, including UK’s Aspinalls, Canada’s Gateway and USA’s Fontainebleau; the sale and proposed sale of non-core assets; and May’s announcement of a proposal to split PBL into two separately listed companies, Crown Ltd to hold the gaming assets and Consolidated Media Holdings to hold the media assets.

James Packer said, “Our recent announcement to acquire a 50 per cent interest in a consortium alongside Macquarie Bank Limited to hold 66.2 per cent of the leading German on-line Real Estate classifieds business Immobilien Scout24 GmbH (subject to completion) reflects our continued desire to invest in market leading new media assets.” He added, “The Group’s fully-owned casino businesses Crown Melbourne and Burswood have performed well, combining to achieve double digit ‘normalised’ earnings growth. MPEL partially opened Crown Macau on May 12 with all facilities fully operating at the end of July. Losses in MPEL for the twelve months reflect the write off of pre-opening costs and the delayed full opening of Crown Macau.”

On the gaming front the company reported that controllable costs at Crown Melbourne and Burswood were tightly managed, and that Burswood had performed particularly well. PBL’s share of MPEL’s results at Crown Macau was a loss of A$47 million principally reflecting pre-opening costs written off. In the UK the Aspinalls joint venture is developing a targeted strategy for bidding for new licences. Around A$220 million will be spent over the next five years to refurbish the hotel and gaming floor at Crown Melbourne. Another A$100 million will be spent over the next four years for similr refurbishment at Burswood. There are also plans for a third hotel at Crown Melbourne.

Net operating cash flow for this year was A$724 million, a decline of A$22 million from the previous year. This reflects earnings movement, increased borrowing costs, and increased tax instalments. After net capital expenditure of A$225 million, dividend payments of A$399 million and net cash inflow of A$4,586 million from the PBL Media re-capitalisation, PBL has moved from net debt of A$1,737 million to net cash of A$1,898 million as at 30 June 2007. The full year dividend declared is 55 cents per share compared with 59 cents per share last year. (E-08.22.07)

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