Inside Asian Gaming

IAG NOV 2022年11月 亞博匯 74 1-10 10 FOUNDER, CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER AND CEO NagaCorp 創始人、控股股東兼行政總裁 金界控股有限公司 POWER SCORE 權能指數: 997 POSITION LAST YEAR 去年排名: 12 CHEN LIP KEONG 曾立强 CLAIMS TO FAME 名成事跡 Majority owner of Hong Kong listed NagaCorp Personally financing half of its US$3.5 billion Naga3 expansion 香港上市公司金界控股的控股股東 個人為金界三期（Naga3）擴建發展提供融資，約佔所需資金35億美 元的一半 CHEN LIP KEONG ’s NagaWorld empire lives a charmed life. A property in a poor country like Cambodia with steady appeal to Chinese gamblers should be in dire straits, caught in a pincer between coronavirus transmission in a nation with limited medical resources and Beijing’s threats to Chinese gamblers and casinos that host them. Yet in 2022, NagaWorld is recovering well after a few months of fallow operations, with third quarter volume for mass market, premium mass and VIP segments increasing 5%, 6% and 43% on the first half of the year, respectively. EBITDA is back in black for the year to date, and GGR for the same period has almost tripled. Yet storm clouds remain. Pandemic-era prospects for Naga3, the latest and most ambitious expansion of NagaCorp’s Phnom Penh property, are not as grand as when plans were first released. Labor tensions from last year are continuing to test the company’s reputation, while questions linger over how the company will repay certain significant debts when they fall due in the coming years. In a recent note, ratings agency Moody’s said that although NagaWorld should generate sufficient cash flow to cover all expenses over the next two years, there is reason for pause around a US$545 million bond maturity in mid-2024 on “limited sources of liquidity given its lack of bank facilities and divestible non-core assets.” This, Moody’s added, is in part due to EBITDA recovering slower than might have been hoped –