Hollywood Park shares take off on good earnings, card club OK.

Record third-quarter earnings and voter approval of a card club prompted the stock of Inglewood-based Hollywood Park Enterprises to surge from $8.50 per share to $11.25 per share during the first week of November.

Just days after 51.75 percent of local residents voted for the card gambling club, Hollywood Park race track released impressive third-quarter numbers.

Results showed a $2.3 million profit for the company, as compared to a $373,000 loss for the third quarter of 1991.

"We had record earnings for the quarter and we expect our results for 1992 to be double 1991," said G. Michael Finnigan, chief financial officer for Hollywood Park. "In anticipation of the vote, the stock rose and then confirmed and then stayed there."

The company's stock is "a real good one," said Michael Holtrey, branch manager with Baraban Securities in Long Beach. "Their earnings growth rate has been good for the past five years and then took a pop in the third quarter."

Finnigan attributed the third-quarter income increase to: more thoroughbred racing days, a quarter horse meet, and insurance money which replaces losses incurred during the civil unrest in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The company has announced a $100 million expansion plan which includes the card club, a 16,000-seat music dome and an Inglewood Police Station. The music dome will be built on a 2.5-acre site at the north end of the track, the card club in the existing Cary Grant Pavilion and the police station constructed on a four-acre site near the Airport Park Hotel. Hollywood Park is donating the land for the police station, which will be built by the city. A golf academy and driving range opened in October.

Hollywood Park officials claim the expansion will create 3,000 new full-time, local jobs. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Inglewood Mayor Edward Vincent and several members of the Inglewood City Council support the expansion plans.

Race track officials said the expansion should generate $7.5 million in additional sales tax revenue and $1.7 million in property tax revenues for Inglewood during the first year of operation. Tax revenues for the city are expected to increase as the project matures.

Scheduled for completion in late 1993, the 200-table card club will outsize neighboring clubs, such as the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens and the Commerce Casino, said a company official.

"Our goal is to use our 335 acres more intensely than they have been used," Finnigan said. "It's important to this company because horse racing as an industry has been sluggish. As a public company, we need to look at the interests of the stockholders."

He said Hollywood Park is concerned with its stockholders, noting that members of its board of directors are "heavily invested in the company."

Finnigan said the company is currently considering "various funding sources" for the expansion, which he did not detail. However, he said company officials are confident the cash can be raised.

In fact, R.D. Hubbard, chairman of Hollywood Park, was so positive voters would approve the card club, he showed up to watch election results with a colorful new tie depicting a swirling mixture of race horses and poker chips, said Rick Simon, company spokesman.

The current company tie is traditional maroon and covered with only horses.