News from the Philippines suggests that James Packer’s Crown Limited will submit a bid for the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) Manila Bay entertainment city being built on 120 hectares of reclaimed land. Aruze from Japan, Genting and a local developer have also expressed interest in the multi-billion dollar project, and Genting has been granted a casino operating licence already. Investors are expected to spend around US$3 billion each on the construction of gaming entertainment complexes with hotels.

According to reports from PAGCOR, Packer's Bloomsbury Investments submitted a $100 million deposit toward a planned 1,700-room resort and convention complex that could include a 1,000-room Crown brand hotel. Talks between Packer and PAGCOR are said to be ongoing and the proposed casino resort would cost around $1.5 billion to build.

At the beginning of this month Crown announced that its joint venture with York Capital Management and property developer IDM in a 27-acre site in Las Vegas would not proceed following a strategic review. The A$44 million investment made by Crown in the project is being written off. In a 4 June statement Crown CEO Rowen Craigie said, “The recent upheavals in world credit markets has made it increasingly difficult for Crown and its partners to develop a commercially viable project on what remains an attractive location on the Las Vegas strip. Accordingly, we took the decision to stop making further payments to the vendors of the site and concentrate our focus on other areas of our business.”

With the recent success of Crown Macau, now reportedly the busiest casino in the world for gaming volume, it seems that the Asian casino market is a more viable option. The Philippine Church and fishermen in the Manila Bay area are opposing the PAGCOR project but plans are well advanced for casino hotels, sports facilities, and a wide range of entertainment and leisure options in the Bagong Nayong Pilipino Manila Bay Tourism City. (E-06.16.08)

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