Genting HK unit keen to build ‘Resorts World Macau’

The working title of the project is reported to be “Resorts World Macau”. ‘Resorts World’ is the branding adopted by the parent, Malaysia’s Genting Group, wherever it operates casino resorts around the world.

According to Yany Kwan, chairman of Treasure Island Entertainment Complex, a construction plan submitted to the Macau government in August last year, does not include any gaming facilities. Kwan made the announcment at a meeting to review investment bids for the Guangdong-Macau Cooperation Industrial Park on Hengqin Island next door to Macau. His company is also interested in building a theme park at the latter location.

But a source told Business Daily the firm “did not rule out” the possibility of gaming, adding, “the part for gaming has actually not been decided yet.”

The most likely route for Genting to get gaming in Macau – assuming the developers hope to complete the project prior to the ending of the current gaming concessions in 2020 and 2022 – would be via a so-called ‘service agreement’ with one of the six existing concessionaires and sub-concessionaires.

According to Kwan, the project – at Praça de Ferreira do Amaral by Nam Van Lake – would see a low-rise boutique hotel “providing hundreds of rooms”.

A source said the venue would also have “shopping facilities, venues for shows and even conventions and exhibitions.”

Genting operates casinos in the Philippines, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as Singapore and is building its first in Las Vegas. Genting Hong Kong operates Star Cruises casino ships out of Hong Kong as well as being a joint venture partner in Resorts World Manila.

Genting Group – led by Malaysian entrepreneur Lim Kok Thay – has long-coveted a presence in the Macau gaming market. It made a bid for one of the three new gaming licences offered by the Macau government in 2001, but its proposal was not taken forward.

In 2007, a unit called Genting International pulled out of a planned gaming venture in Macau involving partnership with the city’s former casino monopolist Stanley Ho Hung Sun. It withdrew reportedly because of concerns in Singapore, where Genting had won a bid to build one of two casino resorts. Mr Ho has previously been labelled “unsuitable” by gaming regulators in Nevada because of alleged ties to triads in the casino junket operations in his Macau casinos.