A Change of Guard

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Tuesday 1 July 2008

NagaCorp mulls over casino rights sale in Cambodia

SINGAPORE: NagaCorp Ltd, the monopoly casino operator in Phnom Penh, said it may sell a licence to foreign companies, giving them the right to develop a new gaming property in the city.
“NagaCorp may consider any subconcession proposal when the timing is right,” chief executive officer Tan Sri Chen Lip Keong, 60, said in an interview on June 27.
The company has a monopoly to operate casinos within a 200km radius of the capital until 2035, and isn’t subject to any legal restriction on selling secondary licences.
Cambodia’s only publicly traded company is betting on growing wealth at home and in the neighbouring countries of Thailand and Vietnam to increase its revenue base beyond gamblers from China, Malaysia and Singapore.
“As bigger regional players focus on the higher end, we expect NagaCorp will maintain its niche in the mass-end VIP segment,” said Gavin Ho, a Hong Kong-based analyst at CLSA Ltd.
Singapore awarded bids for two casino resorts in 2006, cutting taxes on gaming revenue to the world’s lowest for so-called high-rollers. Japan and Taiwan are also considering allowing casinos in an effort to boost tourism.
NagaCorp is catering to “regional mid-sized” gamblers taken to its casino by junket operators, who provided about 45% of its gaming revenue last year, Chen said.
About 52% of revenue comes from the public casino floor. The operator’s revenue rose 69% to US$144mil in 2007.
“We are not competing head on with those high rollers in Macau,” Chen, a Malaysian, said in Phnom Penh, where the company is based. Chen owns 62% of NagaCorp. – Bloomberg

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