BELLE Corp., the license holder of the City of Dreams Manila, the $1.2-billion integrated resort and casino in Entertainment City, said VIP gamers will start operations during the quarter.
Manuel Gana, the company’s EVP and CFO, said the casino did not have VIP gamers during the first quarter; and the space and gaming machines for the junket gamers have not been set up.
“We have spent all of the spending for the casino. What’s left is for the VIP gamers,” Gana told reporters at the sidelines of the company’s stockholders’ meeting.
Revenues of integrated casinos mainly come from mass and VIP gamers, which are organized by junket operators.
He did not give the breakdown of tables between mass and VIP gamers.
City of Dreams Manila has more than 900 hotel rooms, 365 gaming tables, 1,680 slot machines and 1,680 electronic games.
Gana said the Belle is spending P3 billion to P4 billion in capital expenditures for the year.
Willy Ocier, company’s vice chairman, earlier said Belle is planning to spend the amount to complete some of its developments in Tagaytay.
Ocier said it will complete the last phase of its Lakeside Fairways and its 27-hole golf course in Tagaytay Midlands in Batangas.
Last year the company spent P2.78 billion, most of which was also spent on property development.
Belle said it is now on its seventh phase of Lakeside Fairways apart from the nine holes of Tagaytay Midland golf course. Both projects are expected to attain 100-percent completion in 2015, he said.
The company is also targeting to complete its Sycamore Heights, a 26-hectare gated community being developed into 336 residential lots averaging 352 square meters per lot.
As of end-2014, the project is 62-percent complete.
Belle, which owns half of the City of Dreams Manila, has been into property development in Tagaytay City and Batangas since 1989, launching 19 real-estate projects, two golf clubs and one country club, out of its 600-hectare property.
The company said its profit last year was down by 30 percent to P2.56 billion from the previous year’s P3.64 billion, as a result of lower nonrecurring gains. In the previous year, it had higher profit due to transactions covering the lease by Melco Crown Entertainment of the City of Dreams Manila and the share-swap of Highlands Prime Inc.
VG Cabuag