Grand Lisboa Palace Opening Date Set To Be Delayed Till Q3 Of 2021

SJM Holdings Ltd’s has invested $5 billion into its new Cotai development which will feature the spectacular Grand Lisboa Palace casino resort in Macau. The casino operator initially had plans to open the multi-billion dollar casino resort in the first quarter of 2021 but things did not go as per plan.

Morgan Stanley released a statement and said that one of the main reasons why the opening has been delayed is due to pending license arrangements that are expected to go through in the next 8 weeks. As of now, it looks like Grand Lisboa Palace is likely to open only during the third quarter of 2021.

Grand Lisboa Palace is currently waiting on licenses and occupancy approval permits from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), the gaming regulator in Macau and the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO). If things go as per plan, a third quarter opening is likely or it will get further delayed and might open only towards the end of 2021.

The Cotai property will house the Grand Lisboa Palace casino, multiple hotels which include the Grand Lisboa Palace Hotel, the Palazzo Versace hotel and a Karl Lagerfeld. The property will offer visitors an exciting line-up of gaming and non-gaming activities. The gaming floor will cover over 290,000 square feet and is set to feature up to 1,000 slot machines, 260 mass tables and up to 44 VIP tables.

Macau Gaming Market – Struggling

This isn’t the best time to open a multi-billion dollar casino resort in any part of the world as COVID-19 continues to be a problem worldwide. Macau’s gaming market which is the biggest gaming market in the world has saw gross gaming revenues plummet significantly in the last 15 months.

Las Vegas Sands Corp, chairman and CEO Rob Goldstein admitted this month that he was disappointed to see how slow Macau’s casino industry was recovering in 2021. Macau has taken a very strict approach in allowing visitors into the peninsula and hence casinos have suffered due to a drop in visitors.

SJM Holdings is paying HKD200 million per quarter in pre-opening expenses for Grand Lisboa Palace and has taken out a HKD25 billion dollar credit facility to support its Cotai project. Morgan Stanley has said that SJM Holdings now has plans to refinance its HKD25 billion syndicate loan and go in for a HKD20 billion loan over a 6 year period at a lower interest rate.