GGRAsia – Russia’s Tigre de Cristal phase 2 bill US$500 mln: exec

Russia’s Tigre de Cristal phase 2 bill US$500 mln: exec

Nov 24, 2016 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

The second phase of Tigre de Cristal casino resort in the Russian Far East is forecast to cost about US$500 million, said Craig Ballantyne, executive director of G1 Entertainment LLC, the firm developing the project.

Phase two of Tigre de Cristal – with a total area of 100,000 square metres (1.08 million sq feet) – is to include additional hotel rooms, shops, conference facilities and restaurants, Mr Ballantyne was quoted as saying. He did not mentioned any gaming facilities.

Mr Ballantyne’s comments were featured in a piece published on Monday – only available in Russian – in the Primorsky Krai Development Corp’s official website. The latter is a state-owned firm responsible for the development of the Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone, a casino development area located 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Russia’s Pacific port of Vladivostok.

He was additionally quoted as saying that the second phase of the project would generate around 2,000 jobs.

Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd – a Hong Kong-listed firm controlled by casino entrepreneur Lawrence Ho Yau Lung – is 60 percent owner of Oriental Regent Ltd. The latter in turn holds the entire equity interest in G1 Entertainment, which holds the gaming licence for Tigre de Cristal (pictured).

Summit Ascent said in August it had a non-binding agreement with Kangwon Land Inc in South Korea for “potential areas of cooperation and strategic partnership” regarding phase two of Tigre de Cristal.

In its latest interim report, published on August 31, Summit Ascent said it expected to start construction of Tigre de Cristal’s phase two “in the second half of 2017, and open the first stage of our phase two for operations in the first half of 2019”.

Tigre de Cristal had a soft launch in October 2015 followed by an official one in November the same year. The property is currently the only casino in operation in the Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone.

The Primorsky Krai Administration stated in October, in a news piece on its official website, that Tigre de Cristal had received an average daily attendance of around 1,000 people per day in the July to September period. That was about double the figure recorded in the previous three months, the report added.

Four licences have so far been granted for the development of casino resorts in Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone, coupled with land grants totalling almost 1.4 million square metres. So far only Tigre de Cristal has been built and opened, but Hong Kong-listed casino operator NagaCorp Ltd is expected to be the next firm to open a venue in that Integrated Entertainment Zone. NagaCorp’s chairman Tim McNally has told GGRAsia that the construction programme is on schedule and the group expects to open its property there in the summer of 2018.