The debut of SJM’s Grand Lisboa Palace in Macau’s Cotai resort district will not happen before the first quarter of 2021.
For months, speculation was that the multibillion-dollar resort, whose opening has been delayed several times, would open at the end of this year, but Hong Kong-listed parent SJM Holdings put an end to that in its earnings report for the third quarter in which the company acknowledged it has been “severely impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak.”
The company claimed a loss of HK$1.03 billion (US$132.9 million) for the three months ended September 30, down from a profit of HK$738 million in the same period last year, as gaming revenue fell 89.6 percent year on year, reflecting the massive dislocation the market has suffered in terms of visitation and gaming volumes since the pandemic first hit back in January.
As for Grand Lisboa Palace, whose plans call for some 1,900 hotel rooms across three luxury brands, 27,000 square meters of gaming space and a total price tag somewhere between US$4 billion-$5 billion, “The group anticipates opening the project during the first quarter of 2021,” SJM said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
“Construction work on the Grand Lisboa Palace has been completed and the group is awaiting the assignment by local government authorities of final inspection dates, which are expected in November 2020,” SJM Holdings said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
SJM’s casino operating company, Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, the successor to Macau’s original gaming monopoly, is the only one of the territory’s six casino concessions without a Cotai resort.
