GGRAsia – Galaxy Boracay venue to bring US$100mln yearly: reports

Galaxy Boracay venue to bring US$100mln yearly: reports

Mar 22, 2018 Newsdesk Latest News, Philippines, Top of the deck

A new Philippine casino resort involving Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd is likely to bring in US$100 million annually in revenue, reported Philippine media, citing senior sources from the two partners in the venture.

The scheme will use a similar arrangement to the City of Dreams Manila casino resort in that country’s capital, where a local partner holds the land, and the outside operator manages the property, according to media reports.

Construction on the US$500-million new casino resort on the holiday island of Boracay would start next year, said the partners, as quoted by the ABS-CBN media outlet.

Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment had said in a Wednesday press release that a wholly-owned unit had been granted a provisional gaming licence by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor), the casino regulator in that country.

A signing ceremony was reportedly held in the Philippines the same day. The local partner for Galaxy Entertainment is Leisure and Resorts World Corp, which will hold the 23-hectare (56.8-acre) beachfront site.

Construction would take three years and would create “hundreds” of jobs, as well as being likely to bring in US$100 million annually in revenue, Francis Lui Yiu Tung, Galaxy Entertainment’s deputy chairman, was cited by ABS-CBN as saying.

“What excited us, one of the reasons, has to be the new airport which has been built last year, giving direct access to international market to bring in some high-end customers,” said Mr Lui, referring to transport infrastructure on Boracay.

Katrina Nepomuceno, the local investor’s corporate secretary, was quoted on Wednesday by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper as stating: “Apart from Leisure and Resorts World Corp’s share of the gaming revenue, we will be getting lease income from Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group, and revenue on the property [real estate sales] side.”

She was further cited saying her firm’s position would broadly be similar to that of Belle Corp, where that firm is owner of the land where City of Dreams Manila stands, and a unit of Asian casino operator Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd is operator of the facilities in the resort. In Belle Corp’s case, it is also owner of the buildings at City of Dreams Manila and co-licensee – alongside the Melco Resorts unit – for the gaming operations, according to information lodged on the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Leisure and Resorts World Corp’s founder Alfredo Benitez, who is also a Philippine lawmaker, was quoted as saying he expected Galaxy Entertainment’s involvement to be sensitive to environmental concerns. Galaxy Entertainment had said the scheme would be a “low-rise”, eco-friendly development on land including beachfront.

Ms Domingo was quoted several days ago in the Philippine media saying that Galaxy Entertainment’s Boracay project was unaffected by a proposal to shut down the tourism industry on that island for as much as one year, for what was described as an environmental clean up.