Melco PBL Entertainment, a major Macau casino operator, has made more than $1.14 billion following an initial public offering. The company, led by the sons of Stanley Ho, who has operated casinos in Macau for many years and Kerry Packer, the late media and gambling tycoon, will spend the proceeds on building new casinos in Macau and on existing casinos.
According to Morgan Stanley, the new Melco PBL projects, research note last week said Melco PBL's planned City, will probably experience setbacks and high and unanticipated building costs. The construction of the Cotai Strip, a mimic of the Las Vegas Strip, with neon signs, casinos, hotels and shopping malls has caused a shortage of labor and materials in the former Portuguese colony.
The investors in the company, however, are counting on long term success and on China's ever growing economy, which grows at an annual rate of 10 percent.
Macau is the only part of China in which gambling are legal. In 2002 Stanley Ho's 40 years gambling monopoly ended and other companies began building lavish casinos, such as the Sands Macau and the Wynn Macau, owned by American casino tycoons Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn respectively.
Melco PBL's Crown Macau Hotel Casino is scheduled to open in the mid-2007, while the first phase of the City of Dreams project is scheduled to open in late 2008.
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