Hong Kong-listed Suncity Group Holdings Ltd. plans to open its Westside City Resorts World in Manila’s Entertainment City by the fourth quarter of 2022.
In an email to GGRAsia, SunCity said it plans a “competitive” product for consumers visiting Manila’s Entertainment City, currently home of four other integrated resorts: Bloomberry’s Solaire; Genting’s Resorts World Manila; Melco’s City of Dreams Manila; and Universal Entertainment’s Okada Manila.
“Our goal is to build an integrated resort that suits the market for many years to come, especially for our target group – the high-spending, young, ‘work-hard, play-hard’ customers,” wrote SunCity.
The company has announced a “co-development” agreement between Philippine-listed SunTrust Home Developers Inc. and another firm called Westside City Resorts World Inc. for the scheme.
Under the deal, the Westside entity and controlling shareholder Travellers International Hotel Group Inc. will lease the Westside City Resorts project site for “development of the main hotel casino.” Westside “is to appoint SunTrust as the sole and exclusive operator and manager of the main hotel casino.”
Suncity Group Holdings recently acquired a controlling stake of 51 percent in SunTrust, which will become a subsidiary of the company, with its financial results consolidated into the Suncity Group Holdings’ financial statements.
Suncity told GGRAsia that the deal will provide “access to a broad range of investors, which in turn facilitates future fund raising for the project. The firm added that it planned to finance the Manila project via SunTrust through “a mix of equity, [and] convertible bonds, as well as bank financing.”
Suncity Group Holdings stated the firm was interested in entering the Philippines casino sector as this was “a fast-growing Asian gaming market”, with the Entertainment City integrated resorts contributing “significantly” to such growth.
Private-sector casino resorts in the Philippines posted gross gaming revenues of PHP86.32 billion (US$1.7 billion) in the first six months of 2019, up 16.6 percent year-o-year period, according to data by local regulator the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR). Most of that was generated by the four properties in Entertainment City.
Suncity said Westside City Resorts will have “an extremely stylish and modern design, coupled with a ‘day-and-night party’-themed fashionable hotel.”
The firm’s initial plan includes total gaming capacity of 400 tables to serve the VIP and mass markets, and 1,200 slot machines. It also features 400 five-star hotel rooms, a car park, and “non-gaming facilities themed around pool-side parties featuring a high-end pool club”.
Suncity is controlled by Alvin Chau, head of privately-held Macau junket investor Suncity Group Ltd.
Elsewhere, privately-held Suncity Group this week confirmed it was partnering with international architecture firm Aedas to put forward a “tailor-made” project for an integrated resort in Japan’s Wakayama prefecture. Japan is to permit up to three casino resorts in a first phase of market liberalization.
