Resorts World Sentosa casino licence renewed

Feb 01, 2016 Newsdesk Latest News, Singapore, Top of the deck  

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Genting Singapore Plc, operator of the Resorts World Sentosa casino resort (pictured) in Singapore, announced on Friday that the city-state’s Casino Regulatory Authority has renewed its casino licence for another three years commencing on February 6, 2016.

The casino licence is held via a subsidiary called Resorts World at Sentosa Pte Ltd, Genting Singapore said in a regulatory filing.

In a press release issued on Friday, the Casino Regulatory Authority of Singapore said the renewal of the licence followed an assessment of the contribution of Resorts World Sentosa to Singapore’s tourism and economy. The regulator also took into consideration the “independent opinion of an evaluation panel,” it said.

Singapore in 2007 issued a casino licence respectively to Genting Singapore and Las Vegas Sands Corp to operate one gaming resort each, namely Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands. The exclusivity period for those licences expires in 2017.

Fitch Ratings Inc said in a December report that the Singapore government is “unlikely” to grant new licences to set up new casinos post-2017. The reasons are the “potentially higher frequency of problem gaming with the local population, and the muted outlook for the inbound tourism sector in Singapore,” stated the outlook report on the Singapore and Malaysia casino markets from the ratings agency.

Japanese brokerage Nomura said in a note last month it expects Genting Singapore to perform better in 2016, under more stable conditions.

The stabilising adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) run rate “points to a stabilisation of earnings, provided there are no wild swings in the win rate,” said the brokerage.

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