World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) on the Nasdaq announced its second quarter earnings on August 22nd. Revenues for the second quarter of 2005 were $6.6 million, compared to $4.7 million in the 2004 period, a 40% increase. However, the company took a net loss of $400,000 for the quarter. That amounts to a $0.02 loss per share. This time last year WPTE posted $900,000 in net earnings and an increase of $0.06 for shareholders.
The slight decrease in numbers seems to be heavily attributed to production costs for the burgeoning Professional Poker Tour (PPT).
On July 8th, 2004 WPTE announced that a group backed by the Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson, had made an unsolicited offer only a day earlier to purchase WPTE for approximately $700 million. On the heels of the news, shares of the stock soared to $28 from $18, but eventually leveled off after the deal went dead without much explanation. The stock has been steadily declining since. As of 3:00 p.m. on August 23rd, the stock was trading at $13.16 per share. That is approximately a 54% decrease since the rumored buy out fell through.
