It has already created a replica Venice and copycat Eiffel Tower in Macau — now gaming giant Sands China Ltd (金沙中國) has announced it will bring London to the enclave.
The firm, run by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is to invest more than US$1.1 billion in Macau over the next three years, most of which will be spent turning its current casino resort Sands Cotai Central into The Londoner.
The new concept will include “some of London’s most recognizable landmarks,” said a statement from Sands China, which is a 70 percent-owned unit of Las Vegas Sands Corp.
The Londoner would accommodate more overnight guests than the firm’s Venetian and Parisian resorts combined, Adelson said on an analysts call on the company’s third-quarter results.
“Having three iconic must-see European third destination resorts, with a broad range of amenities, will strengthen our marketing and customer-service capabilities, and position us to grow faster than the Macau market and every segment, of both the top line and the bottom line in the years ahead,” he said.
Sands China will also expand its Four Seasons Hotel on the Cotai strip, opening an additional 295 new suites.
The announcement comes as Macau undergoes a renaissance, with gaming revenues bouncing back after being hit hard by a Beijing corruption crackdown launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2012.
“While we have invested over US$13 billion in Macau since 2002 ... we see tremendous future opportunity in the Macau market as it continues to grow and evolve,” the statement said.
Macau has come under pressure from Chinese authorities to diversify away from gambling, and in response, major players have poured their resources into “integrated resorts” offering everything from fine dining to theme park rides as they looked to compensate for the decline in high rollers.
The appeal to mass market has helped stabilize revenues and some big spenders have also returned.
Monthly gaming revenue in Macau has been on the up for more than a year, rising 16 percent last month.
Sands China’s announcement came as part of its third-quarter results which charted year-on-year net profit of US$403 million, up 24.4 percent on the same period last year. Revenue climbed 12.2 per cent to US$1.93 billion.
The Parisian Macao, which opened in September last year, continued to be a chief driver of results, with increased gaming wins from casual gamblers and betting volume.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS