Okada Manila posts record GGR for 2018
Japanese gaming conglomerate Universal Entertainment Corp. may sever yet another tie to the company’s founder, Japanese billionaire and pachinko king Kazuo Okada. A corporate unit of Universal is considering changing the name of the Okada Manila casino resort in the Philippines’ Entertainment City casino zone.
In a news release issued last week, Universal announced the possible rebrand, shortly after its Tiger Resort Asia unit completed its acquisition of a 66.6 percent stake in Philippine-listed Asiabest Group. Tiger acquired the stake with the express purpose of completing a backdoor listing of the company on the Philippine Stock Exchange.
According to CDC Gaming Reports, on February 6 TRA installed 11 new directors to ABG, replacing 10 officers and directors who stepped down. The new appointees include Takako Okada, Okada’s estranged wife; Kenji Sugiyama, president of Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment Inc., the TRA subsidiary that operates Okada Manila; TRLEI Vice President of Accounting Masamitsu Fujime; Toki Takeuchi, Manuel M. Lazaro and Takashi Oya, all current TRLEI directors; and Universal Entertainment COO Hajime Tokuda.
Universal Entertainment confirmed in a February 4 filing to Jasdaq that it will use Asiabest to float shares in Okada Manila on the PSE “in the course of 2019.”
“In light of these developments, Okada Manila has begun considering changing its brand name,” Universal explained in a statement on its website. “With the move of potentially changing its brand name, Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment Inc. can now fully focus on refining its operations and further achieving stellar growth on a clean, untarnished slate.”
The “clean slate” statement sounds like a direct jab at Okada, who was ousted from his companies in 2017 after allegations that he helped himself to company funds for his personal use. He has denied the claims and is locked in a bitter battle to regain control of his companies. Lawyers for Okada called him “the rightful owner” of Okada Holdings and asked, “How can they not consult him on matters regarding his company and his property?”
In January, one count of fraud was dropped against Okada, but a Philippine court has ordered his arrest in another case in which he is accused of misappropriating more than US$3 million from TRLEI.
In related news, Okada Manila posted US$522 million in GGR for 2018, another positive indicator in the overall Philippine casino market, reported GGRAsia. For January, the IR recorded GGR of US$73.7 million, up almost 134 percent compared to PHP1.65 billion in 2018. VIP rolling chip volume for the month produced “the highest rate of increase,” the parent company added.
The January results included VIP revenue of approximately PHP2.29 billion, an increase of 241 percent year-on-year. Mass-market table GGR rose 66.9 to PHP786 million. Gaming machine revenue was PHP771 million for the month, up 53.3 percent from January 2018. Okada Manila’s EBITDA for January came to PHP648.7 million, up 683 percent year-on-year.
“Both gross gaming revenue and adjusted segmental EBITDA for January 2019 reached a record monthly high,” said the Japanese conglomerate.
In other Philippine news, the country’s state-owned casinos generated $1.3 billion last year, up more than 18 percent increase over 2017, reported Casino.org. The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., the state-run gaming regulator, posted a 536.6 percent increase in net income largely due to its sale of land to Philippine casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp, completed in June.
Bloomberry’s Sureste Properties subsidiary paid PHP37.33 billion (US$716 million) to the regulator for two parcels of land in Metro Manila where the group’s Solaire Resort and Casino is located. PAGCOR reported a profit of PHP32.72 billion (US$627.6 million) on the sale. According to GGRAsia, PAGCOR’s revenue from gaming operations rose 18.3 percent from the previous year to PHP67.85 billion (US$1.3 billion) in 2018. The regulator posted PHP2.31 billion in income from other services, the news outlet reported.
PAGCOR said regulatory fees from licensed casinos rose 25.3 percent year-on-year to PHP24.12 billion last year. In addition to serving as the Philippines’ gaming regulator, PAGCOR also is an operator of eight publicly-owned casinos and 34 satellites under the Casino Filipino brand. In 2018, PAGCOR announced a plan to sell off its properties amid concerns about conflicts of interest, but with the boom in gaming revenues, that plan seems to have been put on the back burner for now.
PAGCOR chief Andrea Domingo said GGR for 2018 reached PHP200 billion, an increase of 13 percent year-on-year. She recently forecast 8.5 percent growth to PHP217 billion for 2019, and urged President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider his ban on new casino licenses, saying, “Gaming seems to be the sunrise industry now in Asia.”
