Hong Kong jewellery retailer Chow Tai Fook Enterprises is diversifying into gaming, and is lead partner in a three-way joint venture developing Vietnam’s second integrated resort casino.
After a prolonged delay, work has started on the $4 billion project’s first phase, in the UNESCO heritage city of Hoi An in Quan Nam province.
Also involved in the Nam Hoi An Casino Resort are Vietnamese investment banking firm VinaCapitaland Macau junket company SunCity Group. Chow Tai Fook acquired VinaCapital’s majority holding last September, although VinaCapital has announced it will boost its stake from 22.5 to 32 per cent, and also has a major stake in SunCity.
Chow Tai Fook casino interests in Vietnam, through its New World Development unit, already include two large hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, the New World and the Renaissance Riverside. Three hotels will be included in the Hoi An development.
Including resorts, an amusement park, golf course, premium villas and apartments, the first phase of the Hoi An project will cost about $500 million and should be completed early 2019. It covers 160ha. The only other integrated resort in Vietnam offering high-end gaming for international tourists is the larger Ho Tram Strip resort near Vung Tau, a beach settlement near Ho Chi Minh City.
While the Nam Hoi An resort was licensed in 2010, VinaCapital’s original JV partner Genting Malaysia dropped out of the project two years later after deciding that the government’s demand for a minimum US$4 billion investment threshold was too steep considering the property’s gaming options would not be available to local residents.
Chow Tai Fook, meanwhile, has been aggressively seeking out diversification via casino projects. The company has a stake in The Star Entertainment Group’s $3 billion resort casino project in Brisbane, and in November the Korea Herald reported that Chow Tai Fook had signed a letter of intent to invest $1.6 billion in creating a casino resort at Incheon, near Seoul.
Chow Tai Fook is a privately held conglomerate controlled by the family of Hong Kong businessman Cheng Yu Tung, Hong Kong’s fourth-richest person who is a longstanding business partner of Stanley Ho Hung Sun, a founder of Macau casino investor SJM Holdings. For the Vietnam project, Chow Tai Fook is working through its entity Gold Yield Enterprises.
Reuters has quoted industry analysts as saying that Vietnam is within easy reach of wealthy Chinese who provide the lion’s share of gaming revenue in Asia.
