Wynn signs deal to build hotel-casino in Macau

Verna Yu

Monday, June 24, 2002 | 11:06 a.m.

MACAU -- Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn will bring a taste of Las Vegas to Macau with a deal signed today that's expected to put him in business right next to the hotel-casino operated by longtime gambling kingpin Stanley Ho.

Although Wynn is ready to shake up Macau's casino industry, he paid credit to what the "very intelligent, canny businessman" Ho has accomplished while holding a 40-year monopoly.

"All I can think of is the challenges ahead," Wynn told a news conference in the former Portuguese colony.

Ho will remain one of three players in the Macau industry and has been spiffing up his flagship property, the Lisboa, while waiting for his new rivals from Las Vegas to come to town.

The Macau official in charge of casino licenses, Francis Tam, said the government has agreed in principle to grant Wynn's company six lots adjacent to the Lisboa, although details are still being finalized.

Wynn was asked about Ho and his casinos, which lack the glitter and glamour Wynn's properties on the Las Vegas Strip. Ho's casinos are more austere -- with little atmosphere to enliven action at the gaming tables.

"I think that it's an extraordinary story of a man who came to a city long ago when it was smaller and finding its way and built an industry that is quite unusual, extraordinary," Wynn said.

"It's a very difficult thing to make any institution and to keep any institution agile enough to deal with time over an extended period like 40 years," Wynn said. "When an institution survives that long, you can be sure that whoever is managing that institution is a very intelligent, canny businessman, and Stanley Ho certainly meets that description."

Wynn said he had to be short on specifics about what he plans for Macau because he is in the process of offering shares in a gaming venture to the public and is barred by U.S. stock regulators from touting his business.

The third Macau casino license has been awarded to Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson, who is still negotiating a contract with Macau officials.

Wynn's contract will run for 20 years and requires that his company Wynn Resort (Macau) Ltd. invest $512.8 million within seven years and finish construction of the first phase of its resort by 2006.

Wynn's property will have to pay 1.6 percent of gross income to public charities and 2.4 percent of gross income to support Macau's infrastructure.

Macau's casinos get much of their business from Hong Kong gamblers.

Two of them riding a ferry to Macau this morning said they think the competition will be good for the local industry, infusing it with new ideas and offering players a better deal.

"Stanley Ho won't be able to have his own way all the time any more," said Cheung Sin-kwong, a retired businessman.

"I think the competition should make it more fun and at least things will be cheaper," said another gambler, Leung Kwan.

Macau, which is 40 miles to the west of Hong Kong, was governed by Portugal for 442 years before it was returned to China in December 1999.

It has a high level of political and legal autonomy under an arrangement dubbed "one country, two systems" that is modeled on the Hong Kong government formula put in place when it returned to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997.