Jason Walbridge started as SkyCity CEO in July 2024. Photo / Jason Oxenham
SkyCity Entertainment Group plans to sell two Auckland assets valued at more than $250 million to repay debt, as well as raising $240m in equity, giving it a possible $490m.
CEO Jason Walbridge talked to the Herald after the June 30, 2025 annual result.
He went into more depth on the assets for sale, telling how advanced steps are on the two sales.
A possible $200m from selling quarter-century rights to operate 3000 Auckland car parks underneath and nearby SkyCity is the most lucrative.
A further $54m could be raised from selling its own headquarters.
SkyCity is not talking of selling any of its three hotels in Auckland, where it has more than 900 rooms.
If the carpark lease deal is successful, it would be the company’s second attempt at the move.
It failed on the original early 2019 $220m deal with Macquarie when the October 2019 fire meant those car parks couldn’t be sold.
SkyCity returned $204m to Macquarie on that botched deal.
Today, Walbridge was upbeat about a second buyer emerging.
“We have had a process under way for a couple of months,” he said of the hunt for an operator.
“We’re actively looking to sell a concession for the car parks. It’s just over 3000 car parks. It would be all the Auckland car parks.
“We’re selling the right for someone to operate them and receive the cashflows for 25 years.”
SkyCity anticipated “a tremendous amount of value in those car parks”.
Plans to sell its headquarters at 99 Albert St are well-advanced on the building Auckland Council has a $54m rating valuation on.
“It’s one of the many buildings we own here in Auckland. We’ve had to go through and look at assets and decide what’s most important and if there are certain things that don’t need to be part of our business. We can use that money to pay debt.”
Active marketing was yet to occur but scaffolding had covered the block lately.
“We’ve been getting it ready for sale. We’ve been re-cladding the exterior, replacing tiles with the latest cladding.”
SkyCity had filed its $330m case against Fletcher Building and the Fletcher Construction Company.
Action could begin in the next few weeks.
“We filed our claim in June and it’s now in the hands of the courts.
“We’re working through that process at the moment. There’s court appearances in the coming months and into next year.”
The economic downturn had hit SkyCity here and in Australia. On average, people are spending $5 less per visit.
“In the FY25 results, we’ve talked about ebitda [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] per visitation going from $27 to $22 year on year across Australia and New Zealand,” Walbridge said.
“We’ve got millions of people visiting annually. When they come to see us, they come with less of a budget to stay in a hotel, eat in a restaurant or play on our gaming floors.”
The company plans to raise a further $240m of equity from the market via issuing new shares.
S&P Global said it had revised its outlook for the company to negative “to reflect our view that despite the equity-raising, the timing and extent of a material earnings recovery remains uncertain”.
That may cause key credit measures to remain outside expectations for the BBB- rating for an extended period, it said.
The company has total net debt of $756m, up on last year’s $663m.
Revenue fell 5% from $870m to $825m, although reported profit after tax turned around from 2024’s $143m loss to a $29.2m profit this year.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.