GGRAsia – Emerald Bay in Cebu on budget for 2021 soft opening:COO

Emerald Bay in Cebu on budget for 2021 soft opening:COO

Oct 08, 2020 Newsdesk Latest News, Philippines, Top of the deck

Cebu casino resort project Emerald Bay (pictured in an artist’s rendering) in the Philippines is on budget and on time for its scheduled soft opening in December 2021. That is according to Jose Angel Sueiro, chief operating officer of PH Resorts Group Holdings Inc, the project’s promoter.

The PH Resorts executive said that Emerald Bay – featuring five-star hotel facilities – would mainly target local players, although the property would also be “well-positioned” to attract foreign tourists, including VIP gamblers.

Mr Sueiro’s comments – reported by CNN Philippines – were made during a company investor briefing on Tuesday.

PH Resorts Group – a Philippine-listed firm controlled by local entrepreneur Dennis Uy – is looking to raise up to PHP1.125-billion (US$23.2 million) through a follow-on offer of its common shares. The net proceeds from this exercise – which has already been approved by the Philippine stock exchange – would be used partially to fund the completion of the first phase of Emerald Bay, a beach front casino resort complex in Mactan, Cebu.

The full opening of the first phase of Emerald Bay is to take place in the second quarter of 2022, according to PH Resorts.

Upon the launch of Emerald Bay’s first phase, the property is expected to feature 122 gaming tables, 600 electronic gaming machines and “270 hotel-room bays”, PH Resorts noted in a release on October 1. The whole casino resort project is to be developed in two phases.

The Emerald Bay project would eventually host 146 gaming tables and 729 electronic gaming machines, as well as 780 hotel room bays and five villas, PH Resorts Group said in a July release. In May last year, the company had indicated that it would spend US$600 million on the Cebu casino resort project.

The president and chief executive of PH Resorts, Raymundo Martin Escalona, was also cited by CNN Philippines as forecasting that the country’s gaming industry would return to sound growth in 2021 and 2022. That was following a softening in business in 2020 related to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which had translated into “access restrictions” to gaming properties in the Philippines, due to the imposition by the local authorities of a number of community quarantine rules.