p14-16 Macau:p14-18 Macau.qxd 18/01/2010 09:04 Page 14
MACAU BUSINESS
by Muhammad Cohen Photograph courtesy of
mspagency.org
A tangled web…
It has the glamour, the top-ranked hotels and the high-powered
investors, but the tangled web of deals and departures behind Macau
Studio City on Cotai has seen it struggle to get off the ground. A
Macau Business investigation explains why…
T
he all-signing, all-dancing Macau Studio of Lai Sun Group, secured a plot on the Cotai Strip
City show lost cast members throughout from the Macau government for HK$300 million to
2009, placing it centre stage for all the build a film school.
wrong reasons; Retail developer Taubman Lai Sun chief Peter Lam also controls Media Asia
dropped out in August. Playboy folded its Entertainment Group Ltd – a top Chinese
interest in November, and now a principal partner in moviemaker – as well as extensive TV and music
the proposed HK$16 billion (US$2.1 billion) project interests through other subsidiaries.
“Where Cotai Begins” is suing the other. These links made Lam a good partner for Macau to
But for Macau Studio City to begin production, get a foothold in the international media business.
word from inside indicates at least one of those
partners will have to step aside. Liberal reinterpretation
By speaking to a number of well-placed sources, When gaming liberalisation became a reality in
Macau Business has put together the real story 2002, and the Cotai Strip became a focus for casino
behind Macau Studio City’s fractious attempts to get expansion, eSun saw an opportunity and amended its
off the ground. plans to include a hotel, retail and casino complex.
While the project has a colourful, glamorous, even The new plan won tentative approval from the
sexy history, its fate comes down to a simple equation: Macau government in 2005 and the revised Macau
60 percent of the 32.3 acre site is worth less than 40 Studio City was scheduled to open in mid-2009.
percent of the site plus 100 percent of the casino. The “Where Cotai begins” slogan was used to hype
The twisted Macau Studio City tale begins in 2001, the site just east of the Lotus Bridge immigration
when Hong Kong listed eSun Holdings, a subsidiary checkpoint as eSun went shopping for partners.
For its proposed massive 920,000 square-foot
retail component, eSun teamed with US shopping
mall developer Taubman, which took 25 percent
ownership of the mall for US$55 million.
To provide the development’s 2,000 hotel rooms,
Ritz-Carlton, Marriott and Starwood’s W brand signed
on, along with Lai Sun board member David Tang,
designing the world’s first Tang Hotel in the style of
his Shanghai Tang brand.
Playboy agreed to build the first Playboy Mansion
outside United States, which was intended to be a
hybrid casino, lounge and club. It was an enticing
prospect given that in 1970s London, Playboy’s
casino, with its warren of scantily clad bunnies, was
widely regarded to be the world’s most profitable.
Tortured route
Of course, the key piece of the Macau Studio City
jigsaw for eSun was a casino licence. But, the
tortured route to get it foreshadowed a future
pattern.
“Peter [Lam] didn’t want to partner with a gaming
concessionaire and lose control of the project,” a
14 FEBRUARY 2010
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66