G3Newswire ASIA & OCEANIA GAMING NEWS PENGHU CASINOS BACK ON AGENDA
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PHILIPPINES – FRONTIER TO BUY CASABLANCA Australia-based Frontier Capital Group is buying the Casablanca Casino in the Philippines’ Clark Freeport Zone, along with the adjoining Stotsenberg hotel, in what it says is Asia’s fastest growing gaming market.
In a filing to the Australian Securities Exchange, Frontier con- firmed the price for the deal would be A$26m with January 2016 earmarked for the completion date.
Themed on the film with the same name, Casablanca Casino has a total of 190 slot machines, 36 gaming tables and two VIP rooms. The Stotsenberg Hotel has 239 hotel rooms and a convention centre. Located 1.6 km away from the Clark International Airport, Frontier believes that the scheduled A$450m Passenger Terminal expansion project at the air- port will double the number of passengers annually to 8m and increase the number of customers frequenting the Stotsensberg Hotel and Casino.
Frontier’s recently appointed Chief Operating Officer Ken Wong, who has over 15 years of experience working in the gaming sector, said: “Research conducted by Citi and Macquarie Research has found that the Philippines gaming industry is the fastest growing in the Asia. Our entry into the gaming industry is well timed to capitalize on this potential.”
Mr. Wong is a former executive of Genting Hong Kong. The gaming floor and the hotel will though be managed by E!xcite Gaming and Entertainment.
E!xcite has provided a five-year profit guarantee of $5m a year per annum. E!xcite will be given 142.2m shares in Frontier Capital.
SAIPAN – IMPERIAL PACIFIC TO FORM JUNKETS Imperial Pacific is to hold an official opening ceremony for the temporary casino that it opened on the island of Saipan in the Pacific on November 27.
The temporary casino was opened back in July as the group looks to build the US$7.1bn casino that it committed to when it won the 25 year licence. Operating in the tourist shopping mall DFS T Galleria in Garapan close to a Hard Rock Café, it opened with 10 tables and 48 slot machines. It generated US$500,000 in bets in the first two days. The number of slots has since been doubled. However the group has just confirmed that the first phase of the permanent $7.1bn resort will cost over $600m to build and will have 300 gam- ing tables and 500 slot machines.
It believes it will start getting a return on its investments between 12 to 18 months after its hotel opens by the end of 2016.
Imperial Pacific has said it will begin agreeing strategic alliances with junket operators next month. Best Sunshine International COO Matthew Harkness said they are not solely focused on Chinese tourists. “There is a huge commitment on the part of Best Sunshine to continue to promote, to grow the Japanese tourist base here on Saipan,” he said, adding that Korean and Russian tourists were also important. Imperial Pacific/Best Sunshine Senior Vice President Tao Xing Xing added that they will hold a familiarisation tour especially for Japanese and Korean tour agents ‘to help them promote their businesses.’
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It’s groundhog day for the citizens of Taiwan’s Penghu island as the local government seeks referendum re-run
Taiwan - Legislation
The Taiwanese island of Penghu is again consider- ing a casino development with residents likely to vote on the matter following Taiwan’s presidential election on January 16.
The local government’s Referendum Screening Committee has approved a proposal to hold a ref- erendum. This will now be put before Taiwan’s Cabinet the Executive Yuan. If five per cent of the local population, amounting to 4,113 people, sign a petition, it will be sent to the election committee to prepare for a referendum.
In the previous referendum, which took place on September 26, 2009, a total of 17,369 votes, or 56.44 per cent of the total valid ballots, voted against the introduction of a casino, while 13,397, or 43.56 per cent, supported it.
Taiwan lifted the ban on gambling on the outlying islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu in January 2009. Residents on Matsu voted for casinos in a referendum, in July 2012, however Taiwan’s Parliament has yet to approve the draft casino bill.
Claremont Partners wants to develop a casino on the island of Penghu, however a referendum held in 2009 saw locals vote against a casino. The com- pany’s Carl Burger said last year: “Penghu very much remains a viable location. We anticipate that the supporting Taiwan legislation will finally pass in 2014 and set the stage for gaming operators and investors to enter a new Asian jurisdiction.”
Weidner Resorts Taiwan, headed by former Las Vegas Sands executive Bill Weidner, has also shown its blueprint for a Taiwanese casino resort with luxury hotels and convention halls. Operating giants such as Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts are believed to have analysed the opportunity of gaming in Taiwan due to closeness to China and large poten- tial markets such as Korea and Japan.
SJM currently operates an aver- age of 458 VIP gaming tables, down from 564 for the third quarter last year), 1,263 mass market gaming tables, up from 1,190 last year and 2,737 slot machines, down from 2,806 for the quarter a year ago.
Total VIP chips sales came in at HK$160bn, down from HK$360bn for the corresponding quarter last year and the VIP gaming hold percentage was 3.36, compared to 2.88 per cent.
SJM profits slashed by 81 per cent as Macau gloom holds
MACAU SJM Holdings has lost more than just market share in the third quarter, reporting a fall in profit of over 80 per cent. Gaming revenue for the three months ending September 30 fell by 38 per cent to HK$11.2bn (US$1.45bn), with earnings dropping 49.5 per cent to $884m and profit down a stag- gering 81 per cent to $285m.
The group said: “Profit was affected by an impairment loss on an available-for-sale invest- ment of HK$250m incurred in Q3 2015 (Q3 2014: Nil), without
which profit would have decreased by HK$3,104m in the first nine months of 2015.”
This would have seen profit fall by 65 per cent and not 81 per cent. During the quarter, the group’s VIP gaming revenue suf- fered, generating just $5,442m, a decrease of 47.5 per cent from $10,375m from the third quarter of 2014. Mass market gaming rev- enue was $5,529m, a decrease of 24.9 per cent from $7,359m, and slot machine (and Tombola) rev- enue was $272m, a decrease of 23.8 per cent from $357m.
The Grand Lisboa Hotel achieved an average occupancy rate of 85 per cent and average room rate of $1,743 per night, as compared with average occupancy rate of 90.5 per cent and average rate of $2,261 per night in Q3 2014.
Dr. Ambrose So, CEO of SJM, said: “While challenging conditions in Macau’s market continued in the third quarter, with gaming rev- enues continuing their decline for the sixth consecutive quarter, SJM is making progress in con- trolling costs and enhancing cus- tomer service. Our strong balance sheet positions us well for the completion of the Lisboa Palace project which remains on sched- ule and on budget, and we remain optimistic about the future.”
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