Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2022年1月 亞博匯 86 IN FOCUS T he unexpected early release of the Gaming Law Public Consultation Final Report late on 23 December 2021, well before the deadline of March 2022, makes it abundantly clear the Macau government is intent on completing the gaming concession relicensing process before the current concessions expire on 26 June 2022, thus obviating any need for a short or medium-term extension to the concessions. It should also provide some relief to the global investment community, which has reacted with trepidation at best – and downright panic at worst – ever since the release of the Macau government’s consultation document late on 14 September. As reported by IAG at the time, the initial reaction of investors at the time was a selloff of Macau gaming stocks that wiped away 26% or US$18.4 billion in market capitalization of the Hong Kong listed entities of Macau’s six gaming concessionaires in a single day, 15 September 2021. Much of this panic was caused by six key issues, most of which have since been referenced by the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) or the Secretary for Economy and Finance, either tangentially or more substantively, with hints dropped that the final outcomes might not be nearly as calamitous as the market initially feared. There was, however, one glaring exception: the issue raised at item 3.3 of the consultation document, i.e. the proposal that concessionaires require government authorization before declaring dividends. An English translation of the proposal is as follows: