Monday, Sept. 26, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.
Singapore will delay announcing details of the nation's first casino projects to about a dozen groups, including MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment Inc., to address concerns posed by the bidders.
The city-state, which is allocating two sites for the casino-resorts, said the first guidelines for bidding for a downtown bayfront site will be delayed until the end of November, and rules for the location at the southern island of Sentosa will be released in the first quarter of 2006.
The bidders "want to have fairly imaginative type of schemes and to bring in talent from different parts of the world, but at the same time, they will want to preserve all the motives the government has got," said Jay Moghe, who manages about $25 million as chief executive of Stork Capital Asia Pte. "There may be a couple of bidders that may be edged out, but overall, they'll try and balance these factors."
Harrah's, MGM and Kerzner International Ltd. are among companies competing for the right for two casino-resort licenses to be issued by the Singapore government. The casino operators are seeking to tap into a market that's within a six-hour flight of 2.5 billion people and to replicate the success of new casinos in the Chinese city of Macau.
"The Singapore Tourism Board, together with the relevant government agencies, are working on the feedback," the Singapore Tourism Board said in an e-mailed statement today. "As several of these are complex, the agencies need more time to adequately address the concerns raised."
The government agency also said that it's staggering the release of the bidding process so that groups that fail to get the downtown site can bid for the other location.
The guidelines would be spelt out in a request for formal proposals that may indicate how much space should be provided for gaming, convention centers, hotel rooms, museums and other features of the two projects. The two developments, which may draw S$5 billion ($3 billion) in investments, according to the government, are expected to create as many as 35,000 jobs.
Among companies that expressed interest, Harrah's hired Daniel Libeskind, master planner of the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero in New York City, as the architect for one of its Singapore proposals. Kerzner, operator of the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, has promised an "iconic" design, while Las Vegas Sands, the world's biggest casino-hotel operator by value, said it will build an 832-room hotel, a convention center and an arena if it wins the right to operate a casino in the city-state.
Last week, Las Vegas Sands said it's partnering with concert promoter Clear Channel Communications Inc. to provide entertainment as part of its Singapore bid, adding Clear Channel may bring in productions including Broadway musicals "The Lion King," "Hairspray" and "The Producers" or performers such as Madonna and the Rolling Stones to perform at the Singapore resort.
'Buzz'
Genting Bhd., Asia's biggest public trade casino operator, has teamed up with Universal Studios for a theme park at the Sentosa site. It also plans to shift its Genting International Plc unit to the main board of the Singapore exchange to draw more investors.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who took office in August last year, lifted a four-decade ban on casinos to add "buzz" to the city-state after its share of Asia's tourism market fell. The decision was opposed by some groups, such as Focus on the Family in Singapore, which said it could exacerbate social problems such as loan-sharking and prostitution.
The government has proposed a daily levy of S$100 for each citizen and permanent resident visiting the casino resorts, among measures to curb problem gambling.
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