{"id":35960,"date":"2013-05-23T09:56:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T13:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=35960"},"modified":"2013-05-23T09:56:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T13:56:20","slug":"bill-weidner-to-run-3-5b-baha-mar-casino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/05\/bill-weidner-to-run-3-5b-baha-mar-casino","title":{"rendered":"Bill Weidner To Run $3.5b Baha Mar Casino"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former Las Vegas Sands Corp president Bill Weidner has been chosen to operate a new US$3.5 billion gaming resort in The Bahamas.<\/p>\n

Baha Mar is being majority-funded by the Export-Import Bank of China \u2013 a state-owned Chinese institution \u2013 and is due to open in December 2014. Another equity partner, with US$1 billion, is Sarkis Izmirlian, chief executive of Baha Mar Ltd.<\/p>\n

The resort will be managed by Mr Weidner\u2019s Global Gaming Asset Management LLC, which has an equity stake in the US$1.2 billion Solaire Resort & Casino in the Philippines, and is pursuing a gaming resort licence in Matsu in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Mr Weidner, who helped develop The Venetian Macao while at LVS, told Business Daily that an equity stake in Baha Mar wasn\u2019t an option as the project was already advanced when GGAM was asked to get involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was too far down the pipe [for that],\u201d he stated. \u201cIt\u2019s tough to see how you would carve out something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project has been in preparation for ten years, but an original proposed equity partner \u2013 Harrah\u2019s, now Caesars Entertainment \u2013 was unable to go forward with the scheme, sources familiar with the situation told Business Daily.\u2028Asked if there would be a supply of Chinese VIP gamblers to the resort, Mr Weidner told us: \u201cIt\u2019s a year and a half away and you never know. Look what\u2019s happening outside of Macau now. You have Singapore; you have lots of other places\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis place [Macau] is the hub, this will always be the king. There\u2019s plenty more to fuel this. But I think you\u2019ll see more and more Chinese travelling to exotic places. It\u2019s part of the evolution of a growing China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pete Wu, a former Macau gaming executive who is now senior vice president, international marketing and alliances for Baha Mar Ltd, told Business Daily:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a pipeline for Asian players out to that region. Also the resort is being built by China State Construction, and financed by the Export-Import Bank of China. They have \u2018skin in the game\u2019 so they have a vested interest in helping us be successful. They\u2019re state-owned enterprises, so any additional conversations regarding airlift or airlines, visas, etc., they can offer some assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beach-front project will have a 100,000-square-foot casino with 150 gaming tables and 1,500 slot machines as well as luxury hotels, dining and shopping, a golf course and a convention centre.\u2028Mr Wu stated: \u201cWe can even offer in-room gaming. If you want it in your suite, we can put it in there. We can do that in the form of tables or slots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The executive added the resort also has permission to offer \u2018in play\u2019 betting on live sport, and also proxy telephone betting and online betting.<\/p>\n

It will be the second gaming resort in the Bahamas. The first, called Atlantis, was developed by South African gaming entrepreneur Sol Kerzner from 1994 onwards, from an earlier investor\u2019s project.<\/p>\n

By Michael Grimes<\/span><\/em>
\nMacau Business Daily<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Las Vegas Sands Corp president Bill Weidner has been chosen to operate a new $3.5 billion gaming resort in The Bahamas.\u2028<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,178,95,1695],"class_list":["post-35960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-baha-mar","tag-casino","tag-finance","tag-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}