Macau Casino Group Poured Billions of Dollars into Vietnam

Sun City is currently the largest casino resort group in Macau, spending billions of dollars investing heavily in casino resorts in Asia and set up casino business in Vietnam.

The group was founded in 2007, owns about 17 VIP clubs and 280 gaming tables, serving Macau’s largest betting and casino market as well as VIP clubs in Korea, China and Philippines.

Currently, Sun City operates large casinos with monthly betting up to 130 billion HKD (approximately 17 billion USD). However, in order to expand its business in Asia, Sun City is spending billions of dollars investing in casino real estate projects in Japan and other countries, including Vietnam.

This plan of Sun City kicked off in 2014 with the acquisition of shares and the bid to operate large casinos in many countries.

In Vietnam, a 4 billion USD casino resort project in South Hoi An is underway to build phase 1 with a total investment of 500 million USD with the participation of Sun City. Three partners involved in investing in this billion dollar resort complex are Sun City, Chow Tai Fook (Hong Kong) and Vinacapital.

According to Bloomberg, Sun City owns 34% of the complex through its subsidiary and has acquired the casino management contract of the project.

The South Hoi An project has scale of up to 985.6 ha, the total investment is 4 billion USD. Currently, the phase 1 of the project is expected to develop on an area of about 163 ha, with an investment of nearly 500 million USD, including resort, casino complex, luxury golf course, hotel rooms, luxury apartments and add-ons…

Previously, Sun City has also been eyeing the Vietnam resort market when concerning and want to invest in a casino project in Duong To (Phu Quoc). However, due to the land fund in this area has been licensed to other investors, Sun City wants to replace by Rach Tram, Bai Thom commune.

In 2010, VinaCapital and Genting Berhad of Malaysia were licensed to invest in South Hoi An project, however, due to financial difficulties, in 2012, Genting Berhad unexpectedly withdrew from this project, thus VinaCapital has been continuously seeking for investment cooperation partner. In 2014, Hong Kong billionaire Cheng Yu Tung – the owner of Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook, a Hong Kong-owned jewelery and real estate group, ranked by Forbes as the fourth richest person in Hong Kong with total assets worth 16.2 billion USD has participated into this project, in partnership with Sun City and VinaCapital.

With the expansion of casino-based real estate business in Vietnam as well as in other countries in the region, Sun City is clearly seeking to become a leading casino corporation in the world, such as Las Vegas Sands or Wynn Resorts.

According to Bloomberg, Sun City’s expansion ambitions are planned even when the Macau casino market is growing fast thanks to China’s economy recovering and players spending more and more money, with a 20.4% increase in August. Casino revenue in Vietnam is estimated at 1.2 billion USD, according to Grand Govertsen, a Macau-based gaming analyst. Finally, also according to this report, Vietnam now has about 30 gaming establishments with prizes with 1,900 slot machines and 400 tables. With the relationships with VIP customers of Sun City, it is believed that the project will achieve significant ROI.