Inside Asian Gaming

The Asian Gaming 50 – 2013 Genting Hong Kong currently holds 6.6% of Echo’s ASX-listed shares. Japan is also on the radar should Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government approve legalization, and a major expansion is in the works in and around the Malaysia casino. Plans call for a 3 billion ringgit (US$937 million) revamp and expansion at Resorts World Genting that will add 1,300 hotel rooms. The plan, slated for completion in 2016, includes a 400 million ringgit joint venture with 21st Century Fox to develop a 25-acre movie-themed amusement park that will feature more rides and attractions based on Fox film brands. In the Philippines, Genting Hong Kong’s joint venture with Philippine property giant Alliance Global Group, Travellers International Hotel Group, has said it will spend US$600 million over the next three years on an expansion of their Resorts World Manila casino slated to include 1,100 more hotel rooms, a convention center and additional gaming space. Travellers also is developing one of the four IRs licensed for the Entertainment City resort complex on Manila Bay. A 2016 opening is planned for Resorts World Bayshore, as it’s called. Plans for the $1.2 billion project include 2,000-plus slot machines, 360 table games and a 1,440- room hotel. Genting has big plans in North America as well. The company is a partner in Resorts World Bimini, a 750-acre beachfront destination in the Bahamas that opened in July with luxury villas, shopping and dining, a marina and a 10,000-square-foot casino containing 15 table games and 153 slot machines. The company also is entering Las Vegas in a big way with its recent purchase of Boyd Gaming’s unfinished Echelon resort on the Strip. The site will be home to Resorts World Las Vegas, a phased extravaganza that will feature water attractions and amusements around a cluster of hotels. Plans include more than 400,000 square feet of restaurants and retail, 500,000 square feet of MICE space, a panda habitat, a replica of the Great Wall of China and a collection of terra cotta warriors modeled after the legions of little men unearthed from the tomb of China’s first emperor in one of the most famous archeological finds of the last century. In the UK, where Genting bought casino giant Stanley Leisure back in 2006, the company runs 41 casinos, six of them in London. The largest of the group, Resorts World Birmingham, is under construction and slated for a mid-2015 opening. Macau also looms large for Mr Lim, “But the door’s closed,” as he has put it. “When it next opens, we would be the first one knocking on that door and try our luck.” The 62-year-old tycoon inherited control of the Genting conglomerate from his father, Lim Goh Tong, who founded it. He joined the company, whose far-flung holdings include palm oil production, utilities, oil and gas exploration and non-gaming hospitality, in 1976. He has been a director since 1986. He became chairman in 1993 and executive chairman in 2005. Genting Hong Kong, which he co-founded as Star Cruises, is the third- largest cruise ship operator in the world. The family is ranked third on Forbes ’ list of Malaysia’s richest, with an estimated net worth of US$6.6 billion. “The next wave of the golden age of Macau” is about to begin, proclaimed 37-year-old Lawrence Ho following the recent announcement that Melco Crown Entertainment’s profit in the second quarter had more than doubled year on year, underpinned by strong mass-market revenue growth at the company’s City of Dreams flagship on the Cotai Strip. Having emerged assuredly out of the shadow of his father, Stanley Ho, one of the creators of modern gaming in Macau, Mr Ho is now leading Melco Crown toward regional expansion. Through its Melco Crown Philippines subsidiary the company has partnered with the Philippines’ richest man, retail and property tycoon Henry Sy, on the development of a US$1.1 billion mixed- use resort with a casino—Belle Grande Manila Bay—to open next summer as the second of four IRs licensed for Manila’s Entertainment City resort complex. It will feature 1,000 hotel rooms and suites, 1,900 EGMs, 350 table games andwhat promises to be a vibrant assortment of non-gaming attractions. Mr Ho is also striking out on his own, pursuing a casino deal in Russia’s Far East port city of Vladivostok, where he has concluded an agreement with a local entity for a controlling share in a resort set to open in phases beginning in 2014 and priced at US$700 million at full build-out. Mr Ho’s is the first big name associated with Primorye, as the area is known. It is one of four “zones” the Russian government set 4 Lawrence Ho Co-Chairman and CEO Melco Crown Entertainment aside for casino development back in 2009 after the industry was banned from Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities, where it was flourishing virtually unregulated and only lightly taxed. Mr Ho’s investment is being made through a Hong Kong-listed entity called Summit Ascent Holdings, one of five bidders the Primorye government has selected to present casino proposals. It is not known how many will be selected or when. Until Mr Ho’s arrival, Primorye, which like the other zones is relatively remote, hadn’t struck a chord with investors, and to encourage development officials there are offering low capital minimums and tax breaks resulting in an effective levy on gambling revenue of zero. Now, Cambodia’s NagaWorld is also reported to be interested in investing, Primorye’s attraction being its relative proximity to northeast China, the Koreas and Japan. Beijing is about two and a half hours from Vladivostok by air, Harbin less than two 14 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2013