Macau casino giant Galaxy Entertainment is raising its budget for the second phase of Galaxy Macau to HK$19.6 billion (US$2.51 billion) from HK$16 billion.
A new report in the South China Morning Post says the Hong Kong-listed operator will invest HK$50 billion to $60 billion in the third and fourth phases of its flagship Cotai super-resort, and construction could commence on those as early as the end of this year. Plans for phases 3 and 4 call for 5,500 additional hotel rooms and up to 1,000 table games and 3,000 slot machines.
Phase 2, meanwhile, is expected to be completed by the middle of 2015 and will be funded from the cash-rich company’s reserves. Galaxy entered the new year with HK$15.6 billion of cash on hand after net income more than doubled to $7.4 billion in 2012 on a 38% increase in revenues to $56.7 billion. The bulk of that, $33 billion, was generated by Galaxy Macau.
The company has approval from the Macau government this year to add 50 table games between Galaxy Macau and its StarWorld casino on the Macau peninsula. Deputy Chairman Francis Lui has said one-third of them will be allocated to VIP rooms and two-thirds to the public casinos.
