FOUNDER, CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER AND CEO
NagaCorp
POWER SCORE: 1,209
POSITION LAST YEAR: 12
CLAIMS TO FAME
- Majority owner of Hong Kong listed NagaCorp
- Personally financing half of its US$3.5 billion Naga3 addition
CHEN LIP KEONG-controlled NagaCorp defied sceptics and real-world obstacles in the first year of the pandemic. It recorded a US$102 million profit in 2020, a big fall on the previous year but still remarkable given the NagaWorld property’s reliance on Chinese VIPs.
In November NagaCorp secured a 50-year lease of 75 hectares next to the famed Angkor Wat religious site in Siem Reap, adding that it would build a non-gaming integrated resort there that would promote NagaWorld in Phnom Penh.
Then things went sour. The pandemic in 2021 forced NagaWorld into a months-long shutdown as the Delta variant breached Cambodia’s defences, and in March the government pulled its deal on the Siem Reap plot amid international uproar.
Adding to the company’s troubles, work on the US$3.5 billion Naga3 extension slowed, and further global scrutiny followed reports that NagaCorp would fire 1,300 staff, starting with unionists – a stark contrast to Macau’s arrangements to protect local employees.
NagaWorld is open again, but Chen’s industry-defying success and good relations with the Hun Sen regime must now adjust to the same challenges as the rest of Asia: limited travel, Beijing’s enmity toward gaming and a shrinking VIP segment.
Chen Lip Keong is personally armed with enough cash to partially fund Naga3, and a burgeoning expat Chinese population is likely to keep him in clover.
But even NagaCorp may discover a charmed life can change – especially if China hands out invasive treatment to Cambodia as it has to the rest of Asia.
For the full list of 2021 Asian Gaming Power 50 winners, click here.
