Gaming | Melco Crown to delist from Hong Kong bourse on low trade volume

Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., the Macau casino operator controlled by Lawrence Ho and Australian billionaire James Packer, said it will delist from the Hong Kong stock exchange because of low trading volume.
The company, which also trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market, hasn’t found opportunities to raise additional funds in Hong Kong since listing there in 2011, it said in a statement on Friday. The casino operator plunged 35 percent in the city last year, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 1.3 percent.
An average USD342,000 of Melco shares changed hands daily on the Hong Kong exchange since the company’s debut there, compared with $98 million daily in the U.S. during the same period, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Melco said the move is subject to shareholder approval.
The planned delisting comes after Macau’s casinos reported their first annual decline in revenue after a decade of expansion. The casinos’ sales in the former Portuguese enclave fell amid a campaign by China President Xi Jinping to rein in lavish spending by officials, which has discouraged gambling.
Xi’s push to stamp out corruption has deterred high rollers, who account for two-thirds of Macau casino receipts, and wiped out about $73 billion in market value of companies including Wynn Macau Ltd. and SJM Holdings Ltd. last year. Jill Mao, Bloomberg