Inside Asian Gaming

and has sustained an enviable performance since then. Travellers reported a 24% year on year jump in consolidated revenues in the first half of 2013 to PHP19.1 billion (US$432.8 million), with profit up 25% to PHP2.3 billion. RWM’s success assured would-be developers of integrated resorts in the Philippines that conditions were finally conducive to support big investments. And so the long-awaited Entertainment City development—a 100-hectare swath of government-owned land reclaimed from Manila Bay and located about five miles across town from the airport—is finally taking shape, with the opening of the $1.2 billion Solaire in March, and three others resorts under development or on the drawing board. One of those projects is Travellers’ US$1.1 billion Resorts World Bayshore, though the company has held off on getting it underway, recently announcing that for the time being it is focused on maximizing returns at RWM and does not expect to complete Resorts World Bayshore earlier than 2017. Proceeds of Travellers’planned IPO, first announced in the spring, would provide part of the funding for both the RWM expansion and Resorts World Bayshore. The company originally hoped to raise up to $1 billion, and a July filing with the PSX called for a sale of up to 1.57 billion shares. But Asia’s markets, red-hot in the first half of the year, had cooled by that point—the Philippines’ benchmark PSE Composite Index, which had surged 27% through May, had lost most of those gains over the summer—and Travellers downsized the offering and finally pulled it altogether. If it is successful this time the listing will be the largest in the Philippines this year, according to the Journal . Travellers does not expect to open the US$1.1 billion Resorts World Bayshore earlier than 2017.