Macau casino firm Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd is one of several gaming companies in Asia Pacific featured in the newly-created Nikkei Asia300 Investable Index – an Asia-focused stock index designed to be used as an underlying index for financial products, such as investment funds.
The new Asia-focused stock index was launched by Japan-based Nikkei Inc on December 11. The index is made up of 300 “companies to watch” from 10 Asian countries and regions selected using data such as market capitalisation, trading value and sales growth rate.
Galaxy Entertainment is the index’s only Hong Kong-listed gaming company.
Other casino operators in the index are: South Korean casino operator Kangwon Land Inc; Genting Singapore Plc, the operator of Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore; and Genting Malaysia Bhd, which runs Resorts World Genting, Malaysia’s only casino resort, and operates casinos in the United States, the Bahamas and the United Kingdom.
The Nikkei Asia300 Investable Index is calculated as a free-float adjusted market value index. It includes companies from respectively: China; Hong Kong; Taiwan; South Korea; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Singapore; Thailand; and India. Its constituents will be reviewed once a year at the beginning of June.
“This new index is aimed at meeting the needs to invest in the growing major Asian companies as a basket,” said Nikkei Inc.
In a press release on Thursday, Galaxy Entertainment vice chairman Francis Lui Yiu Tung said: “We are very honoured to be included in the prestigious Nikkei Asia300 indices alongside many of Asia’s leading blue chip companies.”
Mr Lui said additionally that the inclusion in the Nikkei Asia300 indices recognises Galaxy Entertainment’s “success internationally”, as the company plans to expand its gaming footprint in Asia.
Galaxy Entertainment has declared itself a contender for a Japanese casino licence and has announced a strategic partnership with Monaco casino firm Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Étrangers à Monaco.
In December, Galaxy Entertainment confirmed plans to develop a casino resort in the central Philippine island of Boracay. The company said such investment would be done in partnership with Philippines-based Leisure and Resorts World Corp.
