CHAIRMAN AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Landing International
POWER SCORE: 627
POSITION LAST YEAR: 45
CLAIMS TO FAME
• Behind one of Korea’s first true integrated resorts
• Bought and sold London’s Les Ambassadeurs Club for a quick profit
As the clock winds down on a noticeably quiet year for Landing International Development Ltd, you have to wonder if past ambition has at times outweighed reality. Certainly the company and its charismatic Chairman, Dr Yang Zhihui, can’t be accused of lacking drive.
Landing’s introduction to gaming came via a 2014 partnership with global gaming powerhouse Genting to develop South Korea’s first integrated resort on a 260-hectare site on the tourist island of Jeju. When Genting backed out, Landing took the project on by itself, eventually opening the HK$1.5 billion Jeju Shinhwa World in 2017 where it continues to add more hotels and theme parks than we could ever list here.
In the meantime, the company managed to purchase high-end London casino swanky Les Ambassadeurs Club before selling it just two years later for a tidy HK$1.1 billion profit and revealing plans develop a US$1.5 billion integrated resort in Manila. Landing impressed enough for Philippines regulator PAGCOR to grant a provisional casino license and even held a groundbreaking ceremony last August before a cancelled land lease deal saw that dream scuppered. To top it off, Yang was then declared missing from a trip to Cambodia before suddenly reappearing three months later with the simple explanation that he had been helping Chinese authorities with an investigation.
The 12 months since have been far less dramatic for Landing, perhaps tempered by significant declines in its Jeju gaming numbers, but noise out of the Philippines suggests the company’s Manila IR may again see the light of day. Watch this space.
For the full list of 2019 Asian Gaming Power 50 winners, click here.
