Wynn says stock purchases made on ‘extreme weakness in price’

Wynn Resorts Ltd. Chairman Steve Wynn used his company's year-end conference call Thursday to explain his reasons for personally spending more than $110 million to increase his ownership stake in the casino operator.

"I like Wynn Resorts because I think the management is great," Wynn said. "I like the stock a lot and I bought on what I thought was extreme weakness in price. That's my own personal opinion."

On Wednesday, Wynn spent $15 million to acquire 258,523 shares. Wynn paid between $56.98 and $59.77 for the stock over seven different trades.

Wynn has bought nearly 1.6 million shares in Wynn Resorts, giving him more than 12 million shares, or 11.8 percent of the outstanding shares. Wynn paid roughly $63 a share in December and he paid between $53.21 and $59.19 a share in January.

"When it's trading at low levels, I'm always prepared to step in and buy the stock on weakness," Wynn said.

Wynn Resorts, which operates casinos in Las Vegas and Macau, closed at $59.69 Thursday on the Nasdaq, up $1.55 or 2.67 percent.

The company warned investors last month that its Macau gaming operations had a horrible fourth quarter, driving down the company's overall results.

On Thursday, Wynn said its overall net income for the three-month period that ended Dec. 31 fell 20.2 percent to $87.2 million, or 86 cents per share, compared to $1.07 per share a year ago. Net revenue declined 16.8 percent to $946.9 million.

For all of 2015, Wynn Resort's overall net revenue was $4.075 billion, down 25 percent from 2014.

Macau was the culprit for the quarterly declines. In the fourth quarter, Macau net revenue declined 27 percent to $555.7 million. Meanwhile, Wynn's two casinos in Las Vegas saw net revenue increase 3.8 percent to $391.2 million.

On the conference call, Wynn said January in Macau provided the company its "best month in a long time." Wynn said the company was also working closely with the contractor for the under construction $4.1 billion Wynn Palace so that the new Cotai Strip resort meets in June 25 opening date.

In October, Wynn blasted the Macau government during his third quarter earnings call over the slowness in table allocations for his new casino. The company eventually pushed back the resort's opening date to June.

As opposed to his third quarter comments, Wynn was "more comfortable" that the Macau government "would do everything in their power" for the casino to succeed.

"The government is on the side of the development of Macau and the healthy continuation of the industry," Wynn said. "I've spent a lot of time there in the last few months and I'm feeling better about it."

Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3871. Find @howardstutz on Twitter.