Month: March 2021

Việt Nam

Suncity cutting costs at Hoiana, seeks expansion ops.

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Suncity Group Holdings says it’s putting cost cutting initiatives in place to enable its flagship Hoiana resort in Vietnam to ride out the pandemic storm and continues to explore international opportunities.

Suncity reported that it returned to profit for 2020, despite a 67.4 percent drop in revenue, due to an increase in the fair value of derivative instruments and convertible bonds. The company had a profit attributable to shareholders of RMB786.4 million ($119.7 million) compared with a loss of RMB1.48 billion a year earlier.

The Hong Kong-listed company has been on an aggressive drive in recent years to diversify away from its junket operator roots. It is now the controlling shareholder of Summit Ascent, which operates the Tigre de Cristal resort in Russia’s Far East. It’s building an integrated resort in Manila’s Entertainment City and is developing two non-gaming properties in Japan.

However, 2020 was to have been the year when it opened its flagship IR project, the Hoiana.

Commenting on events, Suncity Chairman Alvin Chau explained how Covid had put plans for Hoiana’s grand opening on hold, with Vietnam’s international borders closed since March 2020.

“Flights and visas to Vietnam are no longer accessible, leaving us no chance to showcase what a masterpiece that we have created. 2020 was history, and letting bygones be bygones would be the best strategy,” Chau said. “As long as we stay afloat while we sharpen other swords, and I am not worried about not having chances to strike in the future.”

Hoiana, in central Vietnam held a preview in June. Since then, the 1,000-room resort has generated net revenue of $4.8 million with an adjusted EBITDA loss of $32 million. In addition, luck wasn’t on its side, which resulted in a $1.2 million hit to EBITDA over the year.

Only the mass gaming floor, the VIP rooms, some hotel rooms and the golf course entered into preview on 28 June 2020 and the group has been forced to switch its marketing focus to foreign passport holders in Vietnam.

Still, Suncity said it will continue to ramp up the property and prepare more VIP rooms and food, beverage and retail outlets in anticipation of a recovery.

In addition to its already announced development pipeline, Suncity said it’s actively exploring other overseas markets. It gave no further details.

Its plans in Japan involve a diving resort in the Miyako Islands and a skiing resort in Niseko, Hokkaido. While in the Philippines, the Westside City Project’s main design and piling works are completed and it’s moving on to building the superstructure above the ground.

Source: AGBrief

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Dore ruling could change face of VIP gaming in Macau: Vilela

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

The final court ruling on Wynn Macau’s liability in the Dore Entertainment case could change the landscape of VIP gaming in Macau, according to gaming expert António Lobo Vilela.

Vilela’s latest entry in the Gaming Law Review examines the liability of Macau casino operators for activities rendered inside casinos by gaming promoters (junkets), more specifically, the practice of cash-deposit taking.

A VIP gaming promoter has the role of attracting and facilitating high-roller gaming activity. They do this by operating their own managed VIP room in casinos, offering a share of their earnings with the host casino operator in return for an allocated room.

Such activity requires a gaming promoter to retain strong cash flows.

Over the years, Macau’s gaming promoters have established a practice of raising funds by seeking investors, soliciting funds, and offering high-interest rates for deposits, which allow them in turn, to extend more credit to clients, according to Vilela.

“In other words, gaming promoters act in a very similar way to banks by soliciting investor’s funds, paying monthly dividends for those who invest in their operations.”

It is this type of cash-deposit that was the subject of a court case in 2015 between Dore Entertainment, Wynn Macau and four people after a former cage manager working for Dore Entertainment made off with HK$100 million in deposit capital.

Over the years, over countless appeals, Macau’s courts’ latest ruling states that Wynn Macau would be “jointly and severally liable” to return the funds on deposit at VIP rooms, noting that casino operators are liable as a result of their duty to oversee the gaming operator’s activities carried out inside the casinos.

Vilela said the final decision made by the Macau Court of Final Appeal on a casino operator’s liability on cash-deposits could change Macau’s gaming landscape significantly, leading to Macau’s casino operators questioning whether the VIP revenues brought by gaming promoters are worth the liability.

“The decision is crucial to the Macanese gaming ecosystem and the way it is structured. Whatever the decision may be, it will reshape forever the relationship between casino operators and gaming promoters, finally understanding that the latent financial risks could eventually outweigh the perceived profitability of the VIP gaming,” he said.

In a worst-case scenario, should a gaming promoter with no significant assets in Macau or elsewhere file for bankruptcy, this would leave the casino left honoring their obligations, he added.

Vilela in his article also called for the Macau Monetary Authority to take a closer look at the questionable practices of deposit-taking by gaming promoters.

Source: AGBrief

 

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Lifting the veil on Asia’s casino cruises [Infographic]

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

This week’s ‘By The Numb3rs’ examines the under-reported casino cruise industry in Asia. While land-based casinos suffered during the covid pandemic, the damage was far greater for casino cruises, which were docked for months on a global scale.

According to the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), the global casino cruise industry normally generates more than $150 billion in worldwide economic activity, employing two million people and more than $50 billion in wages and salaries as of 2019.

Asia’s cruise industry was one of the fastest-growing tourism sectors in the world, serving more than 3.74 million passengers in 2019. More than half of these passengers came from Mainland China. The second and third largest cruise passenger segment is from Taiwan and Singapore, respectively.

A total of 39 cruise brands were active in Asian waters in 2019, deploying a total of 79 ships. This was set to further grow in 2020, along with passenger numbers if not for the pandemic.

As with any other industry, the cruise industry had to adapt to social distancing measures as a result of covid. During the pandemic, the cruise liners that were operating did so at 50 percent capacity, with no casino, buffets, or spas open.

Other measures included reserved isolation cabins, social distancing for arrivals and departures, and extensive COVID testing for crew members in the lead-up to, and just before, a cruise. Passengers in many ports were also required to give a negative test result before boarding.

Source: AGBrief

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Tsukasa Akimoto casino bribery trial gets underway

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Today begins the trial of former Senior Vice Minister of the Cabinet Office Tsukasa Akimoto on charges of receiving bribes from agents of 500 .com and attempting to induce witnesses to perjure themselves.

Akimoto, who was for some months in charge of designing Japan’s IR development policies, has consistently maintained his innocence, even as those who allegedly offered him the bribes all pled guilty of doing so and have been sentenced accordingly.

The bribes that prosecutors allege that Akimoto received from 500 .com totaled about JPY7.6 million (US$68,800) in value.

Soon after the allegations against Akimoto became public, he resigned his membership in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, though he remains a House of Representatives lawmaker. He has been the first sitting Japanese lawmaker to be arrested and held in custody in about a decade. Police have been holding him behind bars since last August, after additional charges were made that he had attempted to bribe witnesses against him to recant their testimony.

Five other conservative lawmakers, including former Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya, are believed to have received bribes of about JPY1 million (US$9,200) each. However, prosecutors have inexplicably declined to pursue any charges against them, supposedly because 500 .com was mistaken in its belief that they could influence the outcome of the nation’s IR race.

For its part, 500 .com changed its executive leadership team and is now shifting focus to the bitcoin mining industry, but it has declared itself innocent of all wrongdoing in an internal investigation, and was apparently never even questioned by the New York Stock Exchange, where it is listed.

Potentially the biggest impact from the Akimoto trial will be on the Japanese public. It will once again shine a harsh light on the already unpopular government initiative to build three IRs in the nation. Critics had warned from the beginning that casino legalization would lead to an increase in crime and corruption, and the Akimoto bribery case will be seen by many as part of the manifestation of those fears.

Source: AGBrief

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Pachinko machine ads returning to Japanese TV after a decade

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Beginning on April 1, viewers of Japanese commercial television stations may see something that hasn’t appeared in over a decade–advertisements of the pachinko machine industry.

While some local television stations have carried ads for pachinko parlors or various industry CSR type messaging, there has been a self-imposed blanket ban on advertisements for new pachinko game machines in place since March 2011.

That was the same month, of course, as the occurrence of the nation’s triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident at Fukushima.

In the wake of the disaster, as power shortages caused rolling blackouts and other inconveniences, the pachinko industry came under fire by then-Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and others for allegedly wasting precious electricity resources. The Japan Gaming Machine Industry Association decided that it was best to keep a lower profile, and so it instituted its policy of refraining from television advertising.

In more recent years, the contentious national debate over the unpopular legislation establishing IRs in the country also put the industry under public pressure, as discussions about the threat of gambling addiction inevitably addressed pachinko, the nation’s largest source of problem gambling.

However, in December last year, alarmed by the economic decline of the pachinko industry, its leaders have decided that now is the time to return to the nation’s airwaves.

The Japan Gaming Machine Industry Association and its members hope that renewed television advertising will produce more benefits than drawbacks, luring eager customers back to the parlors with a sense of excitement, rather than drawing the ire of the public and the government authorities. The machine manufacturers hope to see demand rising again.

In 2012, when the campaign of television advertising self-restraint began, about 2.54 million pachinko machines were sold annually. That number fell to only 950,000 units last year.

On the other hand, some of the smaller pachinko firms are concerned that renewed television advertising may also increase the gap between rich and poor in the industry, pushing them into bankruptcy while the larger firms soak up most of the benefits.

Source: AGBrief

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SunCity offloads property arm to focus on gaming

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

SunCity’s Philippines subsidiary, Suntrust Home Developers is doubling down on its Philippines casino business by offloading its non-core property business.

According to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Suntrust on Thursday disposed of its remaining 24.27 percent interest in First Oceanic Property Management Group (FOPM), a company that is primarily involved in the management of real estate properties in the Philippines.

Suncity has been developing the Westside City Resorts World in Entertainment City, which is due to hold its grand opening in 2023.

Earlier this year, Suntrust Home Developers raised a total of PHP12.9 billion (US$268.6 million) through the issue of convertible bonds to finance its project.

In the filing, Suncity said it made the decision to dispose of the shares in FOPM as its business is “entirely unrelated to the casino and entertainment market of the Philippines in which the Group is investing,” and that “the Disposal allows the Group to dispose of its non-core business, focus on and deploy its resources to its principal businesses.”

Suncity said it intends to apply the net sale proceeds from the Disposal as general working capital and to partially finance the construction of Westside City Resorts World.

The purchaser is a 50% owned company of Megaworld, a company that holds a 34 percent interest in SunTrust and is co-developing the Philippines casino resort.

Source: AGBrief

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Việt Nam

Jeju council moving forward with Dream Tower casino approval

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

The Standing Committee of the Jeju Provincial Council has unexpectedly approved Lotte Tour Development’s request for approval of the Jeju Dream Tower casino in spite of the ongoing police investigation of allegations that public opinion surveys may have been manipulated.

The approval recommendation faces a plenary session of the council today and a final decision to be made by Governor Won Hee-ryong.

The standing committee essentially decided to brush aside the national police investigation of the survey manipulation issue.

When Representative Kim Hwang-guk asked, “What will the Jeju Island administration do in the future if there are procedural defects or illegal matters discovered through the judicial authorities’ investigation?” He was answered by Jeju Island Tourism Bureau chief Kim Jae-woong, “Because the casino industry’s impact assessment was conducted for the first time, there were bound to be some inadequacies in the way it was conducted.”

This rather casual stance appears to have been sufficient for the committee to move forward, hinting that there may be considerable political will in the administration to see the casino open its doors as soon as possible.

The committee concluded, “We will ensure compliance with employment regulations, such as maintaining 80 percent of resident’s and 80 percent of youth employment, and prepare concrete solutions for social side effects, such as on housing rights, learning rights, and crime, which the local community is concerned about.”

Last Friday, the same committee withheld approval of the Dream Tower casino application, stating that an “in-depth review is necessary.”

Something appears to have changed their minds in the intervening days, now concluding that neither an in-depth review nor waiting for the conclusion of the police investigation is necessary.

Source: AGBrief

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Sands CEO says infrastructure development to benefit Macau

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Rob Goldstein said the company “firmly believes” the Macau market will recover and will benefit in the future from infrastructure developments throughout the Greater Bay Area.

Writing in the group’s 2020 annual report, Goldstein said the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was a “major milestone” that will help Macao grow tourism and MICE business in the years ahead.

“It is an engineering feat of unprecedented scale that creates a direct connection between the Hong Kong International Airport, one of the largest and most important transportation hubs in all of Asia, and Macao,” he said.

The ambitious Greater Bay Area project aims to link 11 cities across southern China, including Hong Kong and Macau. Through massive levels of investment, the Mainland government is building faster roads and rail links to ease the movement of goods and people, all of which stand to benefit Macau, which gets the majority of its visitation from Guangdong province.

Goldstein said the company will continue to follow its late founder Sheldon Adelson’s vision in investing in its Macau properties. So far it has spent $15 billion on building its four Macau IRs and will continue with targeted investments.

The group in February opened the first stage of its revamped The Londoner property, with further amenities scheduled to rollout during the rest of the year.

Goldstein offered no details on potential future plans and gave no hint as to exactly how the company may deploy its $6.2 billion cash pile from the sale of its Las Vegas properties.

He did however repeat that the company sees growth for the future coming from the higher margin mass market segment. At present, Macau’s recovery is being lead by the premium mass customer as China has not yet permitted the resumption of group visas that would allow the return of large-scale visitation.

Sands has the largest hotel room inventory in Macau at over 12,000, which will make it the key beneficiary once the mass market returns.

“We believe the mass market segment will continue to be a long-term growth segment as a result of the introduction of more high-quality gaming facilities and non-gaming amenities into the market.”

Source: AGBrief

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Cambodia puts a stop to NagaCorp’s Angkor Wat project

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

NagaCorp’s ambitious plan to build a non-gaming resort not far from the world heritage site of Angkor Wat appears to have met a hard end, according to a report in the Phnom Penh Post.

The US$350 million development project raised eyebrows from the time it was announced last November.

Last month, the United Nations’ cultural agency UNESCO issued a statement outlining its concerns, saying, “The proximity of the project to the protected buffer zones of the [Angkor Wat] site as well as the scale, scope, and concept of the planned activities could indeed have an impact on the outstanding universal value for which Angkor was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.”

The statement added, “UNESCO is certain that the Cambodian authorities remain fully committed to the implementation of the World Heritage Convention and will ensure that the protection of the outstanding universal value of Angkor remains at the heart of the decision-making processes relating to the property and its surroundings.”

The latest news is that the International Coordinating Committee for Angkor (ICC-Angkor) ultimately told the Cambodian government earlier this month that “cannot be implemented” in the planned manner.

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts reportedly announced yesterday that it “shares the views of ICC-Angkor.”

According to the information that NagaCorp released last November, the government of Cambodia had granted to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company a fifty-year lease, with an option to renew, on a prime piece of development land sited just about 500 meters south of the outer restricted zone of Angkor Wat.

The company statement at that time explained, “the vision is principally aiming at promoting Angkor Wat Siem Reap and NagaWorld Phnom Penh as the twin tourism icons of Cambodia by leveraging on development of the land lease in Siem Reap into a comprehensive non-gaming integrated world-class resort so that overseas visitors to Cambodia can enjoy and experience the world famous ancient temples of Angkor Wat and the sophisticated NagaWorld complex at the same time with the most competitive price.”

The anticipated non-gaming facilities were being planned by two architectural firms, US-based Steelman Partners and Gensler, and may have included three hotels, the Naga Water World park, an indoor Digital Theme Park, a non-motorized boating canal system, MICE facilities, and a China Town food street.

Source: AGBrief

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Packer to follow Crown board on bid

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Billionaire James Packer plans to abide by the decision of Crown Resorts’ board on whether to accept an A$8 billion ($6.2 billion) bid from Blackstone Group, reinforcing the company’s negotiating stance.

Packer, who holds nearly 37 percent of the Australian operator, told the Australian Financial Review in an email that “I am following the Crown board re my decision.”

The stance taken by Packer is significant as he could have chosen to negotiate separately with the U.S. private equity fund, which would have put pressure on the board to accept the bid.

The recent Bergin Inquiry, which found Crown was unsuitable to hold a license in Sydney, was told of instances in the past when Packer has concluded significant transactions without informing independent directors beforehand.

The Australian newspaper said it expects the company’s adviser, Kelvin Barry of UBS, to advise patience and to push for a higher bid, or alternative bidders.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings notes that Blackstone’s bid may aid Crown’s effort to regain suitability.

Commenting on the bid, the ratings agency said the takeover would permanently end the relationship with its biggest shareholder, Consolidated Press Holdings. The James Packer-owned company has been identified as a significant source of corporate governance lapses at Crown.

Fitch put Crown on Rating Watch Negative (RWN) in November 2020 due to the regulatory concerns over its casino licenses. It stressed that the status will not be changed by the latest developments as the bid is subject to acceptance by Crown’s board and shareholders, amongst numerous other conditions.

“The non-binding and conditional offer made for Crown Resorts could help the Australian gaming operator meet the requirements set by regulators to proceed with its Sydney casino,” says Fitch Ratings. “Nevertheless, it remains crucial that the company continues its remediation process to address all the regulators’ concerns, particularly amid Royal Commissions in its two main operating jurisdictions.”

Fitch said the Royal Commissions in Victoria and Western Australia could have an impact on Blackstone, or any other bidder who may come forward. The Victorian regulator has set 1 August 2021 to report its findings.

The offer for Crown values the company at $11.85 a share, a significant premium to the $8.15 a share paid by Blackstone, but still a bargain basement price, analysts have said. The bid clearly reflects the value of the company’s real estate, with little premium currently built in for the casino component.

J.P. Morgan said in a note that it didn’t believe the board or shareholders would accept the current offer as it stands.

Source: AGBrief

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