Macau’s biggest junket operator wants to be more than a middleman lender for Chinese high rollers, so it’s spending billions of dollars to transform itself into an overseas casino operator on par with Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd.

Suncity Group, which operates VIP rooms where monthly bets recently surpassed HK$130 billion ($17 billion), is looking for partners in Japan after investing in a Vietnam resort scheduled to open in 2019. The company’s international plans include owning stakes in casinos and bidding on contracts to manage others’ casinos.

“As a junket operator, we don’t have enough chips to play the game even in Macau,” said Andrew Lo, executive director of the group’s listed vehicle, Suncity Group Holdings Ltd. “In the future, if we own the integrated resorts, we have golf courses, swimming pools and restaurants. Our clients will stick with us more.”

The Suncity Group Holdings Ltd. Hoiana casino resort. Source: Suncity Group Holdings Ltd.

In Vietnam, the junket operator partnered with Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Ltd. and Vietnam-based VinaCapital Investment Management Ltd. to build a $4 billion integrated resort in Hoi An.

Suncity owns 34 percent of the coastal project through its Hong Kong-listed subsidiary and has a management contract to operate the casino. The subsidiary’s shares have risen 118 percent this year, compared with a 27 percent increase for the Hang Seng Index.

Vietnam could generate as much as $1.2 billion in gross gaming revenue, according to an Aug. 9 report by Grant Govertsen, an analyst with Macau-based Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd. Vietnam has about 30 gaming facilities with 1,900 slots and almost 400 tables, according to Govertsen.

He stressed that Suncity’s expansion plans shouldn’t be interpreted as the company being bearish on gaming in Macau. Rather, it wants to do more business with gamblers outside China.

“We are not moving out of Macau,” Lo said. “We just need to upgrade as our clients become more demanding.

Source: Bloomberg