Trump unlikely to ask for Macau license

Despite Trump representatives filing four trademark applications in Macau, analysts said that it doesn’t mean a casino or hotel will be built.

Macau.- Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd said in a note that even though the Trump brand is working to protect the trademark in Macau, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a Trump hotel or casino will be opened in the city.

DTTM Operations LLC, a company responsible for handling the President’s trademarks, filed four applications in the gaming hub in June and has awaken all sorts of rumours surrounding the reason of said filings. Since the six casino operators licenses beginning to expire in less than three years, they seem to be getting ready in case new bidders are allowed into the market. However, Sanford Bernstein analysts said that it’s very unlikely that Trump business would try to operate in the Macau gaming market.

“It is more likely that Trump is just protecting the use of his brand name rather than trying to get a casino licence in Macau (a prospect that we find to be impossible),” said analysts Vitaly Umansky and Zhen Gong, cited by GGRAsia.

Moreover, the US President’s company, Trump Organization, said to CNNMoney that they’ve been zealously enforcing and protecting intellectual property rights around the world for more than 20 years, particularly in jurisdictions where trademark infringement is rampant.

“If Macau does look west [for a new gaming concessionaire], there are a handful of publicly traded gaming companies with more recent track records of developing and operating large-scale casino resorts,” added Senior Director for Gaming at Fitch Ratings, Alex Bumazhny, the news outlet reported.