MACAU BUSINESS
their interest to do a deal with the winner,” the managing director of IGamiX Management & Consulting illustrates, or the incumbent that has failed to win the bid would lose money for running resorts without casinos.
Treasure Island
He also highlights Genting might still have interests in the hotel-and-shopping mall project—Treasure Island Resort World—located next to Grand Lisboa on the Macau peninsula, an ideal site for GMM to run a gaming resort. “That project is originally due to open by the end of this year, which would be perfect timing for them to convert [part of the facilities] into a temporary casino,” he says. Genting Hong Kong, a unit of Genting Group, bought a
gaming and non-gaming offerings, because the local government has repeatedly indicated there would be no new land plots in Macau zoned for the development of new integrated resorts. The administration has only guaranteed that the 19 casinos directly owned by the six concessionaires and sub-concessionaires at the moment would revert back to the government at the lapse of their licences by end-2022, and some of these gaming venues could be leased to a new winner in the future if needed. But this will result in a situation in which an integrated
resort will be run by two separate parties for gaming and non-gaming offerings, respectively. “There is no clause in any of the land-use rights agreements for the existing IRs [integrated resorts with expiry dates going beyond 2030] that would trigger a transfer of non-gaming assets to the government upon licence termination,” brokerage Citigroup said.
“Could a scenario appear in which Macau awards a
gaming licence to GMM, while the non-gaming businesses at that IR (hotels, malls, entertainment) remain with an incumbent? We think such a combo would prove extremely difficult to operate… and is thus unlikely,” the investment bank said. However, another Macau-based gaming analyst Ben Lee thinks it’s not difficult to resolve this problem. “If an existing concessionaire does not get a new concession, it will be in
“Why would the current six let go?
They’ve got everything the government has asked them to do: they have
properties, they have employees, [and] they have 20 years of history,” Macau-based gaming analyst Alidad Tash remarks
22 NOVEMBER 2022
75-per cent share in the land plot of Treasure Island Resort World in 2007 from local entrepreneurs Yany Kwan Yan Chi and others, but later sold 37.5 per cent of shares to local businesswoman Ao Mio Leong—who is linked to the hotel project of Macau Roosevelt next to Macau Jockey Club in Taipa—in November 2020. The Hong Kong unit, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, has expressed intention to ditch all the shares in Treasure Island, but it is not immediately known whether the firm still holds any interests in the project at the moment. Treasure Island Resort World, covering an area of 8,100
square metres with a total construction cost of about MOP4.7 billion (US$583.8 million), will provide 600 hotel rooms, while its shopping mall will feature French department store brand Galeries Lafayette and others. But the government has never said the site could accommodate a casino.
Local director
Another question concerning GMM’s bid is its local face, as the Macau gaming law requires a permanent Macau resident to be the managing director of the concessionaire and to hold at least 15 per cent of the shares of the firm. Lim Kok Thay, Lee Choong Yan, and Koh Poy Yong are listed as administrators of GMM in commercial registration documents. While Mr Lim is the chairman of Genting Group, Mr Lee is the president and chief operating officer of Genting Malaysia and Ms Koh is the chief financial officer of the firm. All the three executives are believed not to be Macau residents. There are speculations and reports that Mr Yany Kwan might serve as the local face of GMM if it wins a licence— GMM is incorporated in the same Macau office address as several companies linked to Mr Kwan. One of the representatives for GMM during the submission of bid in September is Fong Yee Wai, who works in Vacations International Travel Service (Macau) Ltd linked to Mr Kwan, according to the commercial registration documents. But both Ms Fong and GMM did not reply to questions seeking for comment in this story, and Mr Kwan was not immediately available for comment. Mr Kwan, who is reported to still own part of the shares in Treasure Island Resort World, engages in the businesses of travel, shuttle service between Macau and Hong Kong via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, and others; he is also a member of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
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