Plans for an A billion mixed-use resort with a casino near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are on hold pending regulatory approval of a related purchase involving a casino hotel in the city of Cairns.
Hong Kong billionaire Tony Fung’s Aquis Group, developer of the proposed 7,500-room resort, said it “will be undertaking a strategic review of its plans and development timetable over the coming months” after learning from Queensland’s Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation that it wasn’t possible to grant all approvals by November 28 for the group to close on its A$214 million purchase of Reef Casino Trust, owners of the Reef Hotel Casino in Cairns and Casino Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.
The OLGR didn’t indicate when the approvals would be granted, according to news reports, but Aquis said it was working with the agency “to progress its probity enquiries” with a view to completing them as soon as possible.
The trust’s majority shareholders—Casinos Austria and French hotel giant Accor—have signed off on the purchase, which Aquis sees as providing a necessary revenue stream for financing the larger project, Aquis at the Great Barrier Reef, as it’s called.
Separately, the Casino Canberra purchase is expected to take place before the end of the year at a discount of $3 million to the original $9 million price.
The Reef Casino takeover “was always important to Aquis’ overall financial and investment plans,” the group said in a statement, adding that it while it will consider a new bid in 2015, “there is no certainty any such transaction would eventuate”.
The government of Queensland has granted Aquis at the Great Barrier Reef a preliminary license, one of three the state has authorized—the others are in Gold Coast and Brisbane—to hopes of leveraging tourism to boost its ailing economy.
Located on the state’s north coast about 15 kilometers from Cairns, Aquis at the Great Barrier Reef is envisioned as a phased development with eight hotels at full build-out, 7,500 rooms in all, along with luxury residences, an 18-hole golf course, a water park with a man-made lake and lagoon, shopping, dining and entertainment and convention facilities, a sports stadium and a casino targeting high-rollers from the region, principally from China, with 750 table games and 1,500 machine games.
