Genting UK gets licence

Thursday June 30, 2011

£120mil Resorts World at the NEC granted large casino premises permit

PETALING JAYA: Genting Bhd's British subsidiary, Genting UK, has been awarded a licence to operate a casino at the NEC in Birmingham, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

The company is also undertaking the development of a hotel, spa, multi-screen cinema, conference and banqueting centre and designer shopping outlets at the site.

Dubbed Resorts World at the NEC, it will be a 120mil (RM583.73mil) leisure and entertainment complex that will be a major attraction and provide both economic and employment benefits.

Resorts World At The NEC is a partnership between Genting Group and one of the UK's premier conference, exhibition and entertainment venue operators, The NEC Group.

Aston Villa star striker Gabby Agbonlahor sporting the new club jersey sponsored by Genting UK.

 

Solihull Council said it had granted a large casino premises licence to Genting UK, which has said the whole complex could provide 1,700 jobs, according to the BBC report.

The casino and leisure complex still requires planning permission, according to the authority, while the overall plan also needs to gain a premises licence - for example, to cover the sale of alcohol. Genting UK, which trades as Genting Casinos, has anticipated that the complex development would provide more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs and more than 1,700 construction posts, according to the council.

Genting UK, which is the largest casino operator in Britain with over 40 casinos, was acquired by Genting Malaysia Bhd from its sister company, Genting Singapore plc, for 340mil (RM1.6bil) last October.
The acquisition is to complement its long term international expansion strategy and give it access to established casino brands and the extensive network of casinos already operating across Britain.

Genting UK also recently signed on as the main football club sponsor of English Premier League side Aston Villa.

OSK Research said in a report yesterday that despite the positive incremental contribution, the group's UK operation will still be relatively small as its back of the envelope calculation indicated that this single new “large casino” licence in the UK could potentially raise the group's earnings by roughly 2.3%.

It said that a single large casino in the UK has capacity for roughly 40 to 50 gaming tables and 150 slot machines only, compared with the 600-to 800-gaming table capacity and 1,600 slot machines that the new large scale integrated casino resorts in Asia possess. It is only expected to raise the group's UK casino operations table and slot machines capacity by roughly 13% and the group's total gaming table capacity, including Malaysia, by roughly 5.3%.

“Anyhow, contributions are only expected to come through in 2013 when the casino is completed and up and running,” OSK Research said.

The research maintains its “buy” call and RM4.10 fair value on Genting Malaysia. Despite the small incremental contribution by the group's various overseas ventures, the longer term cumulative contribution could be relatively significant when all its various overseas ventures come on stream over the next one to two years, it added.

Genting Malaysia is also making a presence in the US, having announced its plan for a “Resorts World Miami” in Florida last month after buying 13.9 acres for some US$236mil from US newspaper publisher, The McClatchy Co, via its subsidiary Bayfront 2011 Property LLC.

It was reported that the group was lobbying for a casino licence for this project.
This is its second venture in the US after the company won the bid to build a video lottery facility at the Aqueduct Racetrack in New York City in August last year.

Genting Malaysia saw its share price gain one sen to RM3.54 with 5.67 million shares changing hands yesterday.