Union: 250 is the new table average
Melco Crown Entertainment has successfully amended the terms of a US$14 billion loan agreement and thereby avoided default.
According to GGRAsia, in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Melco Crown said Studio City Co Ltd., the borrowing subsidiary, “has received the requisite lender consent to amend the loan documentation as proposed by the Studio City borrowing group.”
The amendments went into effect November 18. Among other things, the company was able to modify a condition of the loan, that it open its new US$3.2 billion Studio City resort in Macau with 400 gaming tables. The amended deal calls for just 250 tables, said Melco Crown.
Studio City opened October 27 with an allotment of just 200 new-to-market gaming tables, in keeping with government limits. The resort will add 50 more tables in January.
Union Gaming analysts say 250 tables seems to be as much as gaming operators can expect for Macau in the near future, according to CalvinAyre.com. Four more megaresorts will open on the Cotai Strip in the coming years: Wynn Macau’s Wynn Palace, MGM China’s MGM Cotai and Sands China’s Parisian Macao in 2016, and SJM Holdings’ Lisboa Palace in 2017.
The Macau government has promised to enforce a 3 percent cap on new tables in the gaming mecca until 2022, when the last of the Macau casino concessions expires. According to Union Gaming, that means the city will get a grand total of 1,097 tables during that period.
