Thank you for holding, and welcome to the Galaxy Entertainment Group's management update for the fourth quarter and annual results of 2021. Joining us today are Mr. Michael Mecca, GEG Board's Non-Executive Director, Mr. Robert Drake, Group CFO, Mr. Roland To, Senior Director of Strategic Planning, and Mr. Peter Caveny, Assistant Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. At this time, all participants' lines are in listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be provided at that time. I would now like to pass to Mr. Drake for a presentation. Mr. Drake, please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, operator, and greetings everyone, and thank you for joining us for the update on GEG's Q4 2021 results. The GEG team joining me here on today's call includes Mike Mecca, a member of the GEG Board of Directors, Roland To, Senior Director of Strategic Planning, and Peter Caveny, Assistant Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Copies of our media release, stock exchange announcement, and PowerPoint presentation are available on our website, which also include our customary disclaimers. On behalf of our chairman, Dr. Lui, Francis Lui, and the entire GEG family, we greatly appreciate everyone's continued perseverance in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, which unfortunately has touched everyone in one form or another. We are confident that the world, including Greater China, will continue to successfully navigate through this traumatic period, where we remain upbeat and positive that brighter days are indeed ahead.
As you know, Macao continued to be impacted by sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, where the Macao government continued to react incredibly swiftly to minimize public health and safety risks as they have throughout the entire crisis. We again applaud the Macao government for its proactive, decisive, and effective leadership during the pandemic. Despite sporadic outbreaks in Greater China over the past two years, Macao has demonstrated an ability to bounce back quickly in a choppy market, while at the same time supporting the all-important public policy, which is certainly cause for optimism. Believe it or not, Q4 2021 was another prime example of this, where we began the quarter in October with the lowest visitation in GGR since the full reinstatement of IVs in Q3 2020.
We finished the year on a positive note with two of the three best visitation months of the entire pandemic in November and December, while December's GGR grew 80% over October's. As we have mentioned many times before, we continue to believe that the Macao market recovery will be gradual, managed, and choppy in the near term, where we remain as confident as ever in its medium and long-term future. To be clear, GEG remains as committed as ever to the health and safety of the community, our team members, and our guests, as well as the economic and social stability of Macao, where the continued containment of the virus remains the highest priority. Despite the pandemic, Macao has been very busy on the regulatory front.
Macao completed its 45-day public consultation program on revising the Macao gaming law, which has not been updated in 20 years, and subsequently released its report in December 2020. This was followed by the submission of the revised gaming law to the Macao Legislative Assembly in January 2022, where they reportedly expect to complete the process and pass a law sometime in mid-2022. This is arguably the precursor to the forthcoming concession tendering process. The key points listed in the consultation paper and the subsequent proposed revised gaming law were not a major surprise to those who closely follow Macao, where they showed some flexibility. We believe that the suggested proposals, if implemented, would improve the regulatory oversight of the industry, increase the sector's transparency, and strategically position the long-term viability of the cornerstone of the Macao economy.
We are also waiting for further insights into the revised gaming law, as well as an update on the concession tendering process just like everyone else. Let's move on to our Q4 2021 performance, where our effective cost control efforts continue to yield positive results in a choppy revenue environment. On the development front, we also continued to make progress with our enhancement projects at our existing properties, as well as our game-changing development projects in Cotai Phase, Cotai Phase III, which is virtually complete and moved forward with the construction of Cotai Phase IV. GEG's Q4 2021 EBITDA grew 3% year-on-year and more than doubled quarter-on-quarter to HK$1 billion. Our normalized EBITDA of HKD 818 million declined 16% year-on-year, but grew 49% quarter-on-quarter. There are some adjustments in our results that we'd like to share with you.
Our Q4 2021 results include a one-time expense reversal of HKD 168 million, as well as HKD 57 million of good luck, where both benefited EBITDA. You may recall that we played unlucky in Q3 2021, which reduced EBITDA by HKD 47 million. We also played unlucky in Q4 2020, which reduced EBITDA by HKD 59 million, which is more than offset by a $100 million COVID insurance claim. This may be a little hard for you to follow on the call, so we invite you to refer to table on page five of our press release at your leisure for the details. Just for the record, we had a modest reversal of our gaming bad debt reserve in Q4 2021, as we have been accruing for this in the normal course of business and are fully reserved for VIP junket credit.
We mentioned earlier that there was some cause for optimism during a choppy fourth quarter, where our mall operations delivered its second-best performance ever, including a record monthly performance in December, despite significant disruption during the quarter due to COVID-19 outbreaks. We continue to enhance our mall offering by introducing additional highly recognizable world-class brands. This is certainly an important indicator of healthy demand and bodes well for an overall market recovery. We also continue to work hard at managing our cost structure, and we'll continue to deliver operating leverage, especially as business gradually improves. To that end, our Macau OPEX burn rate has declined by 32% from approximately $3.4 million per day under normal operating conditions and was flat quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2021 in the $2.3 million range.
We'd like to pause here yet again and make a very important point on fiscal management, especially during these challenging times. We certainly acknowledge that OPEX burn rate is an important part of the expense equation, but there is certainly more to the overall cost picture than that. Daily cash burn is more indicative of the cost structure as it includes interest expense. We are very fortunate that we are the only concessionaire in Macau that generates net interest income, not interest expense. In fact, our net interest income in Q4 2021 was approximately $250,000 per day. If you deduct the $250,000 per day net interest income from the $2.3 million per day in OPEX burn, you get approximately $2 million per day in cash burn, excluding CapEx.
It's a powerful example of how conservative balance sheet management really pays in challenging periods in general, and in our case, significantly differentiates us from the competition, as well as contributes to making prudent decisions which are under the long-term best interest of the company. We would like to thank everyone on the GEG team, as well as our valued suppliers, who continue to support the company in these difficult times by contributing to our cost management programs. Everyone's support has truly been inspiring. We've also contributed HKD millions to the COVID-19 relief efforts to support the community as we previously reported. Before we move on to our development update, we'd also like to report on our annual 2021 results.
GEG reported a HKD 4.5 billion improvement in EBITDA from a HKD 1 billion loss in 2020 to a positive HKD 3.5 billion profit in 2021. Normalized EBITDA improved by HKD 4.2 billion from a HKD 1.1 billion loss to a positive HKD 3.1 billion. Finally, NPAT improved by HKD 5.3 billion from a HKD 4 billion loss in 2020 to a positive HKD 1.3 billion profit in 2021. Let's move on to our development update beginning in Cotai, where we continue to invest in Macau as well as Galaxy's future. We are pleased to report that we have virtually completed the construction of our Cotai Phase III, including Raffles at Galaxy Macau, as well as the Galaxy International Convention Center and Andaz Macau.
As we have previously reported, we intend to align the opening of Cotai Phase III with the recovery of the Macau market. We are also proceeding with the construction of Cotai Phase IV, Macau's only next-generation integrated resort, which will complete our ecosystem in Cotai. As you can see, we remain highly confident about the future of Macau as we continue to invest literally billions of HKD into our business. In fact, we invested approximately HKD 2 billion in Cotai Phases III and IV during Q4 and approximately HKD 20 billion to date against our HKD 50 billion project where we are doubling our footprint in Cotai.
Our Cotai development activities along with our existing property initiatives also demonstrate our support of Macau during the pandemic by continuing to invest in the economy, providing jobs, and supporting local SMEs, as well as our long-term commitment to help Macau achieve its vision of becoming a world center of tourism and leisure. Next up, at Hengqin, where we continue to pursue our project as well as potentially expanding our focus into Mainland China, including the rapidly expanding Greater Bay Area. We continue to believe that the central government continues to signal strong long-term support for Macau, Hengqin, and the rest of the GBA. Let's move on to our balance sheet, which continues to remain strong, liquid, and virtually unlevered. Cash and liquid investments decreased from HKD 38.4 billion at the end of September to HKD 33.4 billion at December 31, 2021.
Our net cash position declined from HKD 27.8 billion to HKD 27 billion as investing in our development projects including Cotai Phases III and IV was partially offset by operational inflows, including EBITDA and net interest income. Total debt declined from HKD 10.6 billion to HKD 6.4 billion, which primarily reflects HKD 6 billion of borrowings associated with our treasury yield enhancement initiative. Our core debt declined slightly to HKD 375 million, which includes zero debt associated with our Macau operations. Yes, to be clear, we said zero debt with our Macau operations. Moving on to dividends, where the board announced today a special dividend of HKD 0.30 per share payable in April 2022. Our special dividend certainly demonstrates our continued confidence in the Macau market, GEG's future performance, and strong balance sheet, especially during these challenging times.
Our next topic is our outlook, where we continue to remain optimistic that Macau's gradual and managed recovery will continue despite the recent choppiness, including the outbreak in Hong Kong, and are very confident that Macau will continue to navigate through the pandemic. We are also encouraged that we see strong signs of healthy demand and are very confident that the leisure and tourism sector will bounce back. This includes, most recently, our performance over the Chinese New Year holiday in early February. Although visitation was less than anticipated due to travel restrictions, gaming revenue was solid and led by premium mass. Hotel occupancy was higher, and retail was strong, including a record CNY performance. In the interim, we remain well-capitalized to invest in our development initiatives, including our game-changing Cotai Phases III and IV, as the fundamentals in Macau and our operating businesses continue to improve.
We also remain upbeat and very positive about the long-term prospects for Macau and the Greater Bay Area, where the underlying fundamentals continue to remain incredibly compelling. In closing, we would also like to extend our sincere appreciation to the Macau government for their outstanding performance as well as the community, which has rallied around under their leadership during the pandemic. We would also like to thank all the GEG team members again, who have been extraordinarily supportive of the community and the company during this challenging period. Operator, that concludes our opening remarks. Back to you to kick off the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you have questions for today's speakers, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and you will enter a queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it is your turn to speak, please press star two to cancel the question. Once again, please press star one on your telephone keypad to ask a question. Our first question is from D.S. Kim at JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir.
Hi, Bob. Good afternoon. Sorry if I have missed it from the prepared remark, but how much was our bad debt this quarter?
Our bad debt expense in gaming was zero. In fact, we had a modest reversal. We were definitely fully accrued for all the VIP bad debt that we have. We're in pretty good shape. We've been conservative all along, and have been accruing for this in the normal course.
That's amazing, and thanks a lot. If I may have follow-up, when I look at the hold rate of this quarter, especially at Galaxy Macau, it went up fairly nicely, almost 30%. Was there any impact from the mix? I.e., did we see outsized growth in the premium mass, perhaps, you know, converted from the previous junket players and boosted hold by any chance? Or was it just normal fluctuation of the luck and the length of stay and whatnot?
Well, it's great to be lucky every once in a while. I think what we've seen since, you know, the continuous clampdown on VIP, and the highly publicized crackdown on VIP, that, in especially over the Chinese New Year period, that we've seen a modest migration from the VIP segment to our premium direct segment, GMM, and into our mass business as well. I think you'll see a gradual migration here, of play from the VIP segment, which are customers, and coming across to, you know, other parts of our business. We're certainly encouraged by that. It'll be interesting to see how that trend continues over time and but we're cautiously optimistic.
Thank you, sir. If I may, final question on the dividend. I know it's subject to the market situation and the board decision, but shall we read what's announced today as a second half dividend or full year, i.e., you know, I don't want to be too greedy, but just wondering if we can expect similar twice-a-year dividend announcement going forward this year, you know, starting this year? Or, you know, it could be more special, more one-off, annual recurring. That's it from me. Thank you again.
Sure. The dividends are certainly an important part of our capital allocation strategy. As you know, we posted a positive NPAT in the first half, and thankfully, that has continued into the second half. The board is very cautious when it comes to this part of our allocation strategy, and certainly felt comfortable given the long-term prospect for Macao, the future earnings potential driven by Cotai Phases III and IV, that they felt pretty comfortable in paying out a profit at the listco level, which actually also includes our construction materials business. It's, I think, moving forward, we'll continue to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis. If we continue on this path, we've paid special dividends in the past, and as Dr. Lui said at the press conference, hopefully we'll continue to do that in the future.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from Praveen Choudhary of Morgan Stanley. Praveen, please ask your question.
Hi.
Hi, Praveen.
Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Hi, Bob. How are you? Quick question to me, one, on the bad debt. It's clearly a good management that you're seeing reversal. Just wanna understand when junkets close down and you might have extended some advance to them, unlike other companies who have reported one-off bad debt provisions in this quarter, especially fourth quarter, why are you not seeing some of that one-off? Can you explain a little bit in detail? That's the first question. The second question is much more numerical. The CapEx on Phase III and IV, how much is already spent, how much is remaining, and the timing of the opening of various project Phase III, and IV. Thanks so much.
Okay. Sure. Let's tackle bad debt first. We're just very conservative when it comes to managing our balance sheet in general. I think when you look at the amount of credit, I think from everyone, including the VIP junket guys, learned their lessons from prior experiences. We've been judicious all along about accruing for bad debt and we don't have that much to begin with. Rather than taking our medicine all in one big dose, we decided to do it over time. Fortunately, in Q4, that we had a modest reversal. Why did we have a reversal? Well, we had some recoveries from our Genting business, believe it or not.
On the non-gaming side, there's absolutely no problem with our receivables. It's just a consistent operating philosophy, starting with the chairman and Francis and how they've managed their balance sheet, you know, throughout their entire career. As far as Cotai Phases III and IV, of course, that represents a majority of the CapEx. We do invest in our properties, as you know. You know, we invested HKD 2.1 billion in Q4. That brings the total for Phases III and IV to just under HKD 20 billion, if not HKD 20 billion. The total project cost remains in the HKD 50 billion range, so we have another HKD 30 billion to go.
I would say that we invested maybe HKD 7 billion or HKD 8 billion this year in Phases III and IV. We can see that ratcheting up a little bit in 2022, maybe the HKD 8 billion-HKD 9 billion range. As we said in our opening remarks, Phase III is virtually complete. There's not a lot of spend left to go there, but the majority of the balance of the HKD 30 billion that would be allocated to Phase IV. Again, the openings of Phase III, which include Raffles and the Galaxy International Convention Center and Andaz, will be more aligned with the prevailing market conditions. Phase IV, we just continue, you know, moving forward with the construction there, and open that on the back of Phase III. I hope that provides some clarity into our allocation strategy.
Bob, that was excellent. Again, thanks. Congratulations for doing such a great job with the balance sheet and the bad debt side. Maybe one more follow-up question, if you don't mind. This is related to your mass business. We saw that you have gained significant market share in Q4. We saw that market share move from 17 to 20, roughly speaking. Was there anything particular about this quarter that resulted in so much market share gain in mass business? Because when we look at your occupancy, hotel occupancy, it wasn't dramatically different from peers. Then second question is, we are still you know, tracking 30%-40% of normal business. What needs to happen from the travel relaxation perspective for us to get back to, you know, pre-COVID level? What's your crystal ball expectation of when we can ever achieve that? Thank you so much. That's all for me.
Okay, let's tackle mass first. As you can see, you have to look at our volume figures as well. Although our volume was up quarter-over-quarter, we did play lucky. We certainly welcome that. That, the net benefit of the luck was about HKD 57 million to the bottom line. We did play unlucky in Q3 and in Q4 of 2020, Q3 of 2021, that is. The profile of the customer, we continue to believe that it's a premium mass-led recovery. We definitely saw that over Chinese New Year. For the folks that are really willing to jump through the hoops to come to Macau, the quality of customer is just very high.
That's validated by our performance in our retail segment, where the month of December was an all-time record from a monthly retail sales standpoint. The CNY holiday period, it was a record every day at CNY over 2019. We're very encouraged by that. The sectors that are doing well, of course, are the high-end segments. Even some of the mid-tier brands are bouncing back nicely as well. Of course, that bodes well for the overall recovery. To your second question, that is, I think it's all driven by immigration policy, which is driven by the continued containment of the pandemic in China. Unfortunately, there's an outbreak in Hong Kong.
We hope we navigate through that sooner rather than later. They're just taking a very cautious point of view. You know, we're all about our top priority being public health and safety, followed by economic and social stability. I think we're here for the long haul. Fortunately, we have a strong balance sheet to navigate through that, as do a lot of our brothers, even though there's more leverage in the market. There's certainly liquidity to navigate through the storm. We just have a long-term view. If we didn't, we wouldn't be investing HKD 50 billion in Phase II, Phases III and IV in Cotai, which is effectively doubling our footprint. Intermediate, we continue to believe that it's going to be a choppy recovery. Hopefully, it's over sooner than later.
You know, it's very difficult to predict these things. In fact, you can't. All we can do is focus on what we're doing here in Macau and keep our noses to the grindstone. The Chairman and Francis are really leading the charge here.
Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Thanks everyone else for doing a great job. Have a nice evening.
Cheers.
The next question is from Sharon Cheung at Bank of America. Sharon, please ask your question.
Hi, can you hear me? This is Billy on Sharon from Bank of America. I guess, hi. First of all, congratulations on very strong set of results. Just want to follow up some of the remarks that you mentioned regarding Chinese New Years. Obviously, retail was very good, but would you mind to share a little bit more color on mass and premium mass and VIP as well? What kind of trends you find that is interesting and surprising during the Chinese New Years or even after Chinese New Years recently? Have you seen traffic continue to pick up?
Well, you know, the initial period for Chinese New Year, as we said earlier, first of all, the results were very encouraging across the board. Of course, we believe that the mass segment led by premium mass was the primary driver. On the VIP side, we did actually see some shift, you know, essentially from the junkets, which we don't do business with now, toward our premium direct business and into our mass business. I think, as I said earlier, that there's been a migration to some play, and which caused, you know, if you look at our premium direct volume, it was up over 2019. That's a good sign.
Our results in general were above last year, which wasn't a huge bar to overcome. We did post better results than we did last year. On the premium side, you know, we saw some upper end of the premium segment certainly was strong, as were the medium segments of premium direct as well, or premium mass. I think it was a solid performance across the board. You know, again, it was validated by the performance of our retail business. Hotel occupancy was pretty solid, and we had some days that we were well into the 90s, and happy with our results. We actually thought that after the seventh day that things would kind of tail off, but they kind of stuck around.
We were pleasantly surprised by the tail. Right now, recently, of course, there's some seasonality, and the business has drifted downward. That's, we believe, more to seasonality and less to the restrictions. It's, you know, we're very encouraged by the results. It just signals that there's latent demand for tourism and leisure here in Macau. We have to navigate through the pandemic. Coming out of this, I think with Phase III and IV, I think the board feels very comfortable with the financial positioning of the company. Very delighted to pay a dividend just to signal continued support of the long-term prospects for Macau, our future earnings potential, and the financial strength of the company.
Thanks a lot. That's very helpful. Just one follow-up on that is, if we think about the direct VIP or premium direct, if based on our own estimate, it used to account for, let's say, about 20% of the overall VIP volume. Does that mean going forward, that should be a sustainable volume that we can use as a forecast, kind of rough estimate, like 1/5 of them, we can keep through our direct program?
It's an interesting question, Billy. I think it's maybe as a placeholder, we could do that, but I think we need a little more time to see how things really you know, transition out into the future. Again, we're cautiously optimistic about it, but you know, we just wanna keep managing our expectations here. We just need more time to see what type of trend actually transpires from the migration of VIP to our other segments of our business, whether it's premium direct or our mass business. Just need more time.
Okay. Thanks. One last question. I think you also mentioned about Phase III. The opening probably still depend on the market condition. Let's say as the current trend sustain and in terms of market condition, we are getting closer to, like May last year, somewhere around there and without any further border relaxation, just keep it status quo right now. Would that be good enough for thinking about pushing the opening maybe in the next few months?
I think we're gonna keep our eyes on the market as everyone else is. I think, again, we still believe that the recovery is gonna be choppy, it's gonna be managed, and it's gonna take some time. Having said that, you can see that on our OPEX burn rate, that we've been able to effectively control our costs. We've been at basically HKD 2.3 million per day for the better part of the year. We see fluctuations throughout the market. We're very, very disciplined on our cost structure and want to see strong evidence of recovery before we start opening incremental new capacity.
Having said that we could actually move pretty quickly, once we see that, you know, we have a high degree of confidence that we're cycling out of the pandemic and volumes are increasing, that it wouldn't take long for us to ramp up Raffles. It's already part of Galaxy Macau, so we're very conscious about that. It's not a separate integrated resort where you'd have to really take on a lot of costs in order to just open up your doors. As far as the GICC and the Andaz is concerned, that's more, you know, that's more convention facility. There's more, quote-unquote, "casual labor" and to run those operations and really fixed labor. So, you know, that's something that we can manage through.
We're really gonna do our best to align the openings to the recovery of the market. But we wanna see strong evidence of the recovery before we incur incremental costs that we really can't get back. We'll just continue to be very disciplined. We're quite confident that we're creating operating leverage here, doing more with less and significantly reduced our workforce throughout this period. We'll emerge as a much stronger operator.
Thanks, and that makes a lot of sense. Very quickly, one last question regarding back on that.
Sure.
It seems like it's pretty much complete, right, Phase III. Like, in terms of CapEx, after the HKD 2 billion you spent in the fourth quarter, there's not much left in 2022. Is that right? Like, and can we consider basically the construction part is almost 100% complete at this point?
Virtually, and then you go into the pre-opening phases. No, the lion's share of the capital has been invested, and the majority of the balance is Phase III would be for Phase IV.
Thank you very much. Thanks, and congratulations again. Thank you.
The next question is from George Choi at Citi. George, please ask your question.
Hey, George.
Thank you. Hey, thank you very much for taking my question. I have a quick one on licenses. Based on the conversation you have with the Macao government, what's your view on when the license retendering process will start?
As we commented in our remarks that, you know, we're making a lot of progress on the first part of the process which is revamping the gaming law. Currently it's in the legislature, and they're debating it. I think it came out either today or yesterday saying that their target is to complete the gaming law revision process by middle of the year, hopefully before the concessions expire. Then on the back of that, they'll run their tendering process and which is signaling a potential extension. You know, we're still working with the government on what that may actually be. It's, you know, we're watching the newspapers. We're having open dialogue with the government, and, you know, we'll know when we know.
Thank you very much. Another question from me on GEG Phase III. Very encouraging to know that it's virtually complete. Can we get an update on what are those, you know, the typical specific approvals from the various government departments, the fire department, the MGTO. How are we on that front? What are the licenses that are still pending?
We're still working on the permitting process. You can see if you were here in Macau, George, you would see that the project is virtually complete. Even if you go around the convention center, you know, the roads around the facility, we've even painted, you know, the lines. We're making a lot of progress. It's, you know, are we ready to open today? No. Are we working with the government on the permitting process? Yes. You know, we can move very quickly if we see the market coming back, as I said earlier. It's very difficult to predict that. When you do that, you take on incremental costs.
We want to see strong evidence of the recovery. That's why Francis is very disciplined about having a lot of confidence that once the recovery starts, that we could, that it's sustainable and that he'd want to open up incremental capacity.
Thank you very much. That's very helpful. Once again, congrats on the strong results.
Thanks, George.
The next question is from Simon Cheung at Goldman Sachs. Simon, please ask your question.
Hi.
Hey, Simon.
Hey, Bob. Thanks for the presentation. I've got a couple questions. Just in relation to what you mentioned about, you know, these, you know, strength that you're seeing in the mass market. Just wondering who are these customers that you're seeing? 'Cause, you know, obviously we continue to see all this news about, you know, cracking down on the blacklist players. Wondering whether you can shed some light on who are these players and whether there's gonna be incremental impact from that policy tightening. That's the first one. Second one, just back to the debt that I think I saw on your balance sheet.
You have, what, HKD 590 million of, you know, that, you know, receivable numbers. I suspect, you know, part of which would be related to the construction business. You know, can you share with us, you know, what is your net exposure to junkets as of now? And then, thirdly, on the dividend, you know, the HKD 0.30 DPS basically was broadly in line with your EPS last year, which is 100%. I remember you used to pay 30%. I don't know that HKD 1 billion that you're now paying, equivalent to HKD 0.30 . How should we think about, you know, going forward?
Is there any, you know, resumption of some sort of, you know, payout ratio once you reach certain milestone? Lastly, I think on the last point on Wynn Resorts, I noticed that at the back of your announcement, your equity stake reduced from 4.8% - 4.5%. I was wondering what's in there. Have you reduced your exposure or anything? Thank you.
As far as Wynn, I don't—you know, Wynn, our position hasn't changed. The value of the investment changed, unfortunately, but the amount of shares hasn't. Going back to your first question on, you know, what we're seeing in the mass business, I think in general, we continue to believe it's a premium-led recovery. We were pleasantly surprised that folks outside of Guangdong made the effort to come to Macao, which is a strong signal that there's a demand for what Macao offers in general and what Galaxy has specifically. You're right about policy tightening. We're monitoring that very closely. There are new laws going into effect effective March 1 in China that we're conscious of.
You know, I think what's going to happen is that you're going to have to make this up with smaller numbers. The loss, meaning that it'll take more customers to make up for a premium customer. I think once that segment of the market bounces back, that it would bode well for the overall market. As far as our bad debt and our net debt, you know, we are fully accrued for VIP. We are fully accrued for all of our VIP credit, 100%. On our premium direct business, we employ a top-down approach where we apply very conservative advance formulas against receivables, and supplement that from a bottoms-up player-by-player review by our credit committee.
We're more than adequately reserved there, and that's why we had some recoveries during the quarter. In fact, our bad debt reserve for gaming and for non-gaming actually had a modest reversal. It's not a bad thing. I hope I answered your question on that. As far as dividends are concerned, I think we're looking at it on a case-by-case basis. We did, as I said earlier, report a positive NPAT in the first half of the year, and then of course, in the second half of the year as well.
I think just to show support for the shareholders and throughout the pandemic and just being supporters of the company, that I think the board felt comfortable paying out a dividend based on what we just went through and which attests to the financial strength of the company, what we think our long-term earnings potential is, and reaffirming our long-term confidence in Macao to do and to pay today. We're remaining very bullish on the prospects for Macao. That's why we're investing in phases three and four. We think we're well positioned to participate in the concession bidding process when it happens, and we're very excited about the future.
As to your future dividends are concerned, you know, we'll continue to employ what we've always done is that the board will evaluate it on a case-by-case basis. It's difficult to say, "Well, is it gonna be X% payout ratio, Y% payout ratio?" You know, we take a lot of things into consideration when we evaluate dividends, and I'm sure the board will continue to do that in the future.
Okay. Okay, sounds good. Thanks a lot, Bob. You know, congrats on the good set of results again. Thank you.
Cheers, Simon. Thank you.
Thank you. There are currently no more questions.
Well, great. We covered a lot of ground here. Thank you for participating in today's call. We look forward to updating you on our first quarter results sometime during the month of May.
Pardon me.
Stay safe and healthy.