Melco Crown Entertainment’s Philippine subsidiary is looking to raise up to US$129 million in a share offering to help fund a $160 million increase in its budget for City of Dreams Manila.
PSX-listed Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts is offering as many as 485.2 million shares at 11.30 to 11.70 pesos each, according to terms of the deal obtained by Bloomberg News.
The offering was announced as the budget for the first phase of the super-resort, slated to open in October at Entertainment City, a government-sponsored gaming complex on Manila Bay, was boosted from $680 million to $840 million.
City of Dreams has seen its budget raised twice. It was increased by 10% last October. The project is a partnership between Melco and local resort developer Belle Corp., an arm of Philippine retail and property giant SM Group.
Four resorts are licensed for Entertainment City in all. City of Dreams will be the second to open. The first, Solaire Resort & Casino, controlled by PSX-listed Bloomberry Resorts, opened last March. The third will be Kazuo Okada’s Manila Bay Resorts, scheduled to open in 2015. PSX-listed Travellers International, which operates the country’s largest and most lucrative casino, Resorts World Manila, has the fourth license and has tentative plans to open in 2016.
Melco Crown Entertainment is a partnership between Macau casino tycoon Lawrence Ho and Australia’s Crown Resorts, which is controlled by billionaire James Packer. Nasdaq-listed Melco operates two casinos in Macau and a citywide chain of machine gaming parlors and is developing a second megaresort in Macau, Studio City, which is slated to open next year in the territory’s booming Cotai gaming district.
City of Dreams Manila is the company’s first joint venture outside Macau. Separately, Mr Ho is pursuing gaming developments in Vladivostok and Barcelona, while Crown is pursuing casino licenses in Sri Lanka, in Brisbane, Australia, and is approved to develop a resort casino in Sydney.
Crown’s flagship casino is in Melbourne. It also operates a resort casino in Perth in Western Australia.
