A South African gaming company is prepared to spend over $2-billion as it takes on the world’s top industry players in a high-stakes battle to build and run casino resorts in Singapore.
Peermont Global is among 14 companies invited by the government to submit detailed plans for two integrated resorts that will include Singapore’s first casinos.
It will compete with US firms like Harrah’s Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage, as well as major players from Australia and Malaysia.
Since the decision to proceed with the controversial casinos was announced on April 18, executives from these companies have been busy meeting with Singapore tourism and trade ministry officials as they sharpen their proposals.
The contracts, worth around $3-billion (R18-billion) for the two projects, will be awarded by the end of the year.
Ernie Joubert, Peermont’s chief executive, acknowledged his company may be one of the smallest among the bidders, but was unfazed by the competition.
”It’s tough competition, they are all strong players and we respect them but we are not overly concerned. We don’t believe that there’s anything they can do that we can’t do,” Joubert said in an interview on Wednesday.
Peermont, which operates integrated resorts that include casinos, hotels, convention centres and restaurants in South Africa and Botswana, is bidding to build and operate a resort on Singapore’s downtown Marina Bayfront.
The other casino resort is to be built on Sentosa island, which is connected to the mainland by a causeway.
”It’s an open process, it’s an open international competition,” he said.
”In other words, they [Singapore officials] are not favouring any of the existing big companies so smaller companies like ourselves have a chance.”
Among the other contenders in Singapore are United States-based Eighth Wonder Asia, Kerzner International of the Bahamas, Australia’s Tabcorp Holdings, South Africa’s Sun International and Malaysia’s Genting International.
Also in contention are two Singapore firms and a partnership between Australia’s Publishing and Broadcasting and Hong Kong’s Melco International.
US-based Argosy Gaming said in a statement on its website on Tuesday it had withdrawn from the competition, citing its pending merger with Penn National Gaming.
Joubert (55) said the Singapore resort, which would be Peermont’s first foray outside of its home region, was intended to be its flagship global project.
Peermont was prepared to invest ”in excess of $2-billion”, he said, adding that half of it would be financed by equity investments and the rest raised from the global debt market.
The company is negotiating with a local company and a leading global bank to be its partners.
Without giving specific details about the project, he said Peermont would employ 5 000-10 000 permanent staff at the resort.
Las Vegas Sands has also begun making public some of its plans for Singapore, with The Business Times newspaper reporting on Thursday the US gaming giant was prepared to spend more than two billion dollars.
Las Vegas Sands president and chief operating officer William Weidner told the paper it intended to recreate a colonial-era Singapore River theme at the Marina Bayfront.
The resort would have Malay-style kampungs, or villages, as well as Indian and Chinese themes, with a 40-storey Guggenheim museum part of the more modern part of the development. – Sapa-AFP