Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Tokyo-based Universal Entertainment Corporation is poised for a major expansion of its casino resort interests in the Philippines.
It was revealed earlier this month that Tiger Resort Leisure & Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI), the Philippine unit of the Japanese gaming and entertainment company, has signed a “preliminary agreement” that would see it take a majority interest in the Emerald Bay Resort in Cebu.
The Emerald Bay project is currently under construction, but it has already received a provisional gambling license. It aims to become “an iconic and luxurious five-star integrated resort in Cebu, and the premier entertainment destination in the Philippines outside of Entertainment City in Metro Manila.”
Once completed, Emerald Bay will contain a five-star hotel adjacent to the beachfront, with two fifteen-story towers accommodating over six hundred rooms and four swimming pools. It will also host an assortment of food and beverage outlets, retail spaces, and conference and exhibition facilities. The casino is set to include more than seven hundred electric gaming machines and over 140 gaming tables.
Currently, Universal Entertainment runs only one casino resort, Okada Manila in the nation’s capital.
The “definitive agreement” allowing the Japanese company to take over Emerald Bay is scheduled to be reached next July, and the casino resort might be built and open its doors to the public at some point in FY2027. The acquisition price has yet to be determined.
Universal Entertainment’s opportunity to acquire Emerald Bay emerged as a result of the recent financial struggles of the project’s initiator, business magnate Dennis Uy. After experiencing a meteoric rise across a diverse range of industries, Uy became too deeply entangled in debt as profits from some of his major ventures started coming in more slowly than he had anticipated.
Among other things, this caused the construction of the Emerald Bay Resort to stall.
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