Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2021年1月 亞博匯 12 亞博匯早報 BREAKFAST BRIEFS MACAU GOVERNMENT LIKELY TO EXTEND MACAU GAMING CONCESSIONS FOR THREE YEARS: MORGAN STANLEY 摩根士丹利： 澳門政府很可能將澳門 現有博彩專營權延長3年 THE MACAU SAR GOVERNMENT is likely to abandon plans to hold an open tender for gaming licenses before June 2022, instead extending the current concessions for three years until 2025 due to time constraints brought about by COVID-19, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley. In a note examining the government’s plans to finalize the license renewal process by 2021 – thereby allowing for new licenses to be issued by the time current concessions expire in 2022 – analysts Praveen Choudhary, Gareth Leung and Thomas Allen outline the reasoning that makes them consider such a tight timeline impracticable. In particular they point to the two-year extension granted SJM Holdings and MGM China in 2019 which, aside from bringing them into line with the other four concession holders, was also an issue of time, “as necessary preparation for an open bidding process could not be finished before the licenses expired. “We believe we are in a similar situation due to COVID-19,” they state. “For open bidding to happen, Macau has to run a public consultation, and then put the new law in the Legislative Assembly (the draft is not ready yet), which could take more than a year.” As a result, the analysts “do not expect [the rebidding process] to happen in 2021/22 due to the time crunch.” Morgan Stanley notes that a three-year extension seems most logical given the desire to keep the duration of current gaming concessions aligned. 投資銀行摩根士丹利 表示，澳門特區政府很有可 能會放棄在2022年6月之前對賭牌重新競投的 計劃，反而是將目前的牌照有效期延長三年至 2025年，主要還是由於新冠疫情導致時間緊迫。 摩根士丹利在一份報告中研究了政府重 新競投的程序計劃，政府計劃明年應完成重新 競投的程序，從而能夠保證在現有賭牌於2022 年到期之前新賭牌可以順利發放。其中分析師 Praveen Choudhary、Gareth Leung和Thomas Allen列舉了他們認為由於時間緊迫而不太可能 完成相關計劃的原因。 他們特地指出，政府在2019年給予澳博控 股及美高梅中國兩年賭牌的延期，除了令其與其 他四大博企的賭牌同步到期之外，亦有時間因素 的考慮，「因為公開招標的必要準備工作不能在 賭牌到期之前完成。」 他們稱：「由於新冠疫情，我們正處於類似的 處境。」 「要進行公開招標，澳門須首先進行公眾咨 詢，然後將新法律提交立法會（草案尚未準備就 緒），這可能就需要超過一年的時間。」 因而，分析師們認為，「由於時間緊張，並不 認為重新競標的程序會在2021/22年發生。」 摩根士丹利同時表示，考慮到之前政府希望 保持當前的博彩專營權有效期一致，因而三年的 延期似乎最為合理。