Genting Malaysia to invest US$2.4 billion into its Resorts World Genting Casino

Malaysia had committed to invest US$1.1 billion in 2013, but recently decided to nearly double this amount.

Malaysia.- Genting Malaysia Bhd, the parent company of the Resorts World Genting Casino, has decided to invest nearly US$2.4 billion to increase the gaming capacity at the Sky Plaza and to complete new projects at Resorts World.

The decision came after senior executives from Genting Malaysia met with analysts from the Affin Hwang Investment Bank Bhd to examine their investment plans based on the company’s Genting Integrated Tourism Plan (GITP.)

The money will come from leveraging additional funding from their capex and will be invested in a series of projects that will be carried out in phases during the coming years, according to market demands. The first phase will include increasing the gaming space in the podium and is expected to be completed before the end of 2016.

Resorts World Genting benefitted on market trends and experienced double digit growth in its VIP gaming and its mass market segments during 2015, whilst most of the gaming markets in Asia were struggling. The decline trend in the Macau casino industry was beneficial for Resorts as the casino recorded a 60:40 ratio of mass market revenue vs. VIP gambling revenue. The group plans on running promotions this year aimed to push that ratio to a 50:50 percentage by focusing heavily on premium mass market gamblers as the company expects a spike in tourism of around 30 million visitors each year by 2020.

Lim Tee Yang, an analyst from Affin Hwang said in a statement: “This expectation of high growth in visitor arrivals would be positive to Genting Malaysia given that its Malaysian operations (Resorts World Genting) generate the highest EBITDA margin and benefit from higher gaming volumes.”