Inside Asian Gaming

April 2016 inside asian gaming 9 Cover Story I use the example of LVS [Las Vegas Sands, in Macau], where I came from. There’s the Venetian, there’s the Parisian and you have the Four Seasons in the middle with a partnership there. Across the street, St Regis, Conrad, Sheraton … same thing, where we could own one or two and the other five, six or seven are all other owners, exactly like how it is in Macau. IAG: How does the deal Best Sunshine signed in December with Kan Pacific to cooperate through the term of its lease expiring April 2018 fit in? MB: It was a partnership agreement that, if we were awarded the RFP, we would partner with them and where they will also continue on with us. If they want to build a Japanese hotel on our site, they could do that, maybe we could get on the land sooner, and we’ll all do business together. We still want the Japanese market here, so for a Japanese company to build a Japanese hotel on our land, that’s great. IAG: Under the agreement, they won’t bid on the site? MB: I’m not sure if they will or not, but they already know what our plan is. So if they are going to bid US$80 million to fix up their resort, that’s not going to be any competition to what we are planning on doing on that site. AMERICA’S COTAI IAG: That will be 1,000 rooms? MB: In one building, and we plan on having 20 buildings. The site is huge. That’s a city, our version of the Cotai Strip with 11 hotels and nine casinos, villas and homes and condos, the largest water park in the world, shopping. It’s an astounding site. IAG: Where do you stand with financing Grand Mariana and beyond? MB: For Grand Mariana, as I told the [Commonwealth Casino] Commission, the funding is done. We have the money already for the US$500 million property. We raised in the very beginning US$350 million. We sold the Hengsheng junket piece; that was US$50 million. We are very transparent here. We have to show the Commission everything. IAG: So now what’s the relationship between Best Sunshine and Hengsheng? MB: Now, absolutely nothing. That’s sold, that’s out of our company. Now there’s zero. IAG: How did you finance the rest? MB: The US$300 million was raised by equity and convertible We are building and got approval in full for a US$500-to-600 million property across the street, Grand Mariana, which will have between 400 and 500 slot machines, about 250 to 300 table games and 374 suites.