Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING MAR 2019 10 BREAKFAST BRIEFS AMAX INTERNATIONAL WRITES OFF US$45 MILLION STAKE IN CLOSED MACAU CASINO GAMING and casino investor Amax International Holdings Ltd has taken the dramatic step of writing off its 24.8% stake in closed Macau casino Greek Mythology, valued at more than HK$353 million (US$45 million), in order to remove a Disclaimer of Opinion issued by its auditors. Amax revealed in mid-February that it had made the decision to declare full impairment losses on its Greek Mythology interest, as well as HK$28.5 million in cash owed, as a result of making no headway in its lengthy pursuit of financial records from the casino’s former management company, Greek Mythology (Macau) Entertainment Group Corporation Limited. Greek Mythology was closed in December 2015 under order of the DICJ, with the Macau Government Tourism Office subsequently ordering The Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel in which the casino was housed to cease operations on 22 July 2016. The hotel’s license was revoked on 12 January 2017. Amax reported in September 2017 that it had been “trying but failed to contact the management of Greek Mythology to understand the current situation of Greek Mythology which led to uncertainty on the development of Greek Mythology.” Having been unable to complete its own financial records in the 18 months since, Amax said it had now agreed to write off the entire asset and sell its 24.8% stake to a local Macau investment firm, Fu Po International Limited, for just HK$38,000. “The board is of the view that, based on previous discussion with the company’s auditor, the impairment and the disposal of [Greek Mythology] could address and resolve the audit issues arisen by the auditor’s prolonged disclaimer of opinion on the company interest in [Greek Mythology] and the amount due,” it said. MICE NAMED KEY IR FEATURE AS OSAKA CONFIRMS EXPECTED US$8.4 BILLION OPERATOR INVESTMENT OSAKA ’s IR Promotion Council has formally confirmed the Osaka IR Fundamentals Plan, including specific figures relating to the expected size of an Osaka integrated resort and scale of investment. The primary concept of the plan is to build “the world’s greatest growth IR” with an investment of JPY930 billion (US$8.4 billion) and featuring Japan’s largest MICE facility covering more than 100,000 square meters. The MICE facility has been highlighted as the newmain feature of an Osaka IR and would be larger than Japan’s current biggest exhibition hall, Tokyo Big Site, which is just north of 95,000 square meters. The capacity of the largest conference hall will be 6,000 people and over 12,000 people across the MICE facility as a whole – once again beating the current largest capacity hall in Japan, Tokyo International Forum. The IR Promotion Council has put the expected total scale of investment in an Osaka IR at JPY930 billion with annual sales estimated to be JPY480 billion, of which around JPY380 billion would be casino sales. The IR is expected to attract 24.8 million visitors annually of which 18.9 million are forecast to use facilities other than the casino. The “growth” in “theworld’s greatest growth IR” concept is divided into three phases. The first phase is the IR with commercial MICE facilities and a casino. The second phase is an entertainment facility using the 2025 World Expo site. The third phase is building resort facilities.