Resorts World Bayshore City set to break ground

MANILA, Philippines–A group led by taipan Andrew Tan plans to break ground for Resorts World Bayshore City, its second integrated gaming hub, which will rise in Pagcor Entertainment City, within the next 90 days, with the first phase expected to be completed by 2018.

The new gaming hub in Pagcor City, which builds on the group’s success in operating the country’s first privately run gaming complex in Newport City, will be under a unit called Resorts World Bayshore.

Kingson Sian, president of Alliance Global Group Inc. (AGI), which is in partnership with Malaysia’s Genting group in gaming unit Travellers International Hotel Group Inc., said the delay in jump-starting the Pagcor City project was due to the delay in the turnover of the property in the complex.

The first phase of the complex will include three hotels with a combined portfolio of over 800 rooms, a 3,000-seater grand opera house, a shopping mall, residential towers and a gaming area that will be larger than Travellers’ existing facility in Newport City across Naia International Airport Terminal 3, Sian said.

The total investment commitment for this project is $1.1 billion but the group has yet to finalize the capital spending plan for the first phase, Sian said.

“Our land there is 31 hectares. The initial phase will probably (take up) less than one-third of that,” Sian said. “By October, we will probably make a more detailed announcement.”

The advantage of being the last complex to open in Pagcor City, Sian said, would be that the group would be able to offer attractions that earlier players do not have.

He added that Travellers would not raise fresh equity to build the new complex, noting that the gaming firm was still in a net cash position.

Among the three hotel brands that will rise in Bayshore, Sian said, would be Japanese luxury hotel brand Okura.

Beyond the first phase, Bayshore is envisioned to be a themed tourism estate with around 2,800 hotel rooms alongside leisure, retail, gaming and entertainment facilities.

Meanwhile, Sian said AGI aimed to end this year with higher net profit attributable to equity holders of parent company as all subsidiaries were expected to post better results this second semester.

“We expect it to be higher but we have to work hard for it,” Sian said.

During the AGI stockholders’ meeting on Tuesday, he said: “All AGI subsidiaries are poised for a stronger finish this second half.”

In the case of flagship Megaworld Corp., the property developer is projected to hit P7 billion in recurring income from rental portfolio this year, eventually growing these annual recurring earnings to P10 billion by 2017 to 2018.

Sian noted that in the first half, most of the subsidiaries posted strong results but overall earnings were weighed down by “other income” as treasury earnings declined.

AGI posted a P7.5 billion first-semester net profit attributable to equity holders of parent, down by around 9 percent year on year on slower revenues from gaming, hotel and fast-food businesses.

Including minority interest, six-month net profit was up by 1.2 percent year on year to P11.37 billion.