Osaka Approves MGM-Orix IR Bid

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Osaka Prefecture has officially selected the MGM Resorts-Orix Corporation consortium’s bid for the construction of a major urban Integrated Resort (IR) including a casino at the Yumeshima site in Osaka Bay.

The approval of the ¥1.1 trillion (US$9.7 billion) bid was widely anticipated because no other consortium opted to challenge MGM-Orix in the final Request for Proposal round.

Bill Hornbuckle, president and CEO of MGM Resorts International, stated, “Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City have implemented a comprehensive and well considered selection process to achieve the goal of developing a world-class Integrated Resort in Osaka, and I am honored that we have been selected as the partner for Osaka. No other place has a brighter and more enjoyable future for tourism and hospitality than Japan, and Osaka is a good place to launch that future.”

MGM Resorts has been working toward this result for the better part of a decade in a methodical and determined fashion. Its “Osaka First” policy was officially declared in January 2019, but long before that time it had focused on this location more than any other in Japan.

While at one point there was speculation that it might go much higher, the ¥1 trillion investment figure has also been on the table for quite some time. Then-Chairman and CEO James Murren publicly dropped that number as early as November 2017.

Once it opens its doors in the latter part of this decade, it is estimated that the Yumeshima IR will pull in over 20 million visitors on an annual basis and produce yearly revenues of about ¥540 billion (US$4.9 billion).

MGM and Orix will be equal partners in the consortium with about 40% ownership each. The remaining 20% will likely be taken up by a wide range of smaller partners.

The planned IR will have a floor area of 770,000 square meters, including a casino, an international conference hall, an exhibition hall of ​​about 20,000 square meters, and large-scale accommodation and entertainment facilities. About 15,000 people will be directly employed.

All three of the candidate prefectures—Osaka, Wakayama, and Nagasaki—have now selected their IR consortium partners. The next step is the joint applications to the national government for licensing.

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