Influx of Chinese didn’t happen
This year, Bloomberry Resorts Corp., owner of the Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila’s Entertainment City, has seen its stock plunge a precipitous 61 percent. That males it the worst performing big stock in the Philippines, according to Bloomberg News.
Despite the plummet, Bloomberry Chairman and CEO Enrique Razon Jr.—who made his fortune as head of International Terminal Container Services—says Manila is not Macau, and the company and the jurisdiction will see a reversal of fortune in the near term.
“The whole industry has been painted with the same brush, but we’re nowhere near the situation in Macau, where revenue is really falling,” said Razon.
Philippine casino operators had banked on building the industry with Chinese high rollers who no longer patronize Macau. That influx of tourism hasn’t happened; in fact, souring relations between the countries has caused Chinese tourism to the Philippines to drop by one-third in the first quarter. But Razon says mass-market and local gamblers can fill the void. Bloomberry will continue to court VIPs players through junket operators, he added.
Astro del Castillo, managing director at First Grade Finance Inc., takes a dimmer view of the industry’s potential for strong growth, Bloomberg reported. “The environment will remain difficult and investors will remain skeptical,” del Castillo said. “It’s hard to imagine where spectacular growth will come from for Philippine casinos without China, since that’s the region’s biggest source of gaming traffic.”
Razon insists mass-market is on the rise. He forecasts those players will account for some 60 percent of Bloomberry’s gaming revenue in the next three to five years. Razon said premium customers from Southeast Asia, Taiwan and South Korea also continue to arrive at the multibillion-dollar Solaire, according to Casino.org News.
Meanwhile, Razon’s fellow billionaire, Japanese gaming titan and former Steve Wynn intimate Kazuo Okada, is nearing completion of his own casino project in Entertainment City. Manila Bay Resorts was supposed to have been completed last March; when it missed the deadline, parent company Tiger Resorts—whose local partner is resort owner and political insider Antonio Cojuangco—had to pay 100 million pesos (US$2.2 million) in fees to PAGCOR, the Philippine gaming regulator. Last month, Tiger announced PAGCOR had granted it an extension to complete the resort by late 2016.
Forbes reports that a revised plan adds US$700 million to the budget for a total investment of $2 billion. The resort has also added 1 million square feet (97,000 square meters) to the blueprint. Manila Bay Resort will open with 1,000 guest rooms and a casino with 500 tables and 3,000 machines. It will also include an artificial beach on Manila Bay as well as dozens of new restaurants.
It will join Solaire and two other IRs in Manila: Genting’ Resorts World Manila, and Melco Crown’s City of Dreams.
