Consortium to boost Echo’s casino bid
Echo Entertainment has joined forces with two Chinese companies to create the Destination Brisbane Consortium in a bid to strengthen its bid for a new Brisbane casino licence.
Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Far East Consortium – two of the companies shortlisted by the state government in May – have signed a deal with Echo to bid together for Brisbane’s Queen’s Wharf casino site. The two Hong Kong-based companies signed a binding memorandum of understanding to each take a 25 per cent stake in the $1 billion-plus casino and entertainment complex project while Echo takes the other half and act as the operator. The three-way joint bid will leverage Chow Tai Fook’s and Far East Consortium’s expertise in hotels, property residences and know-how with the Asian market.
Chow Tai Fook Enterprises is controlled by tycoon Cheng Yu-tung, whose family owns a large portfolio of property, hospitality and retail interests across the region, including New World Hotels, New World Development and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, the world’s largest jeweller.
FEC is a Hong Kong listed property developer specialising in international hospitality businesses with a strong presence in Asia and have had extensive property development activities in Australia since 1994. FEC has a management team based in Melbourne.
It reduces the number of competitors for the Queen’s Street Wharf site with the other companies in the running being Chinese property developer Greenland Holding Group and James Packer’s Crown Resorts.
Echo’s Matt Bekier said the Destination Brisbane Consortium would give Echo the opportunity to leverage CTF’s Chinese and Asian VIP client base while FEC had strong experience in hotel operations, retail and tourism.
“The Destination Brisbane Consortium brings together Echo’s extensive Queensland and broader Australian experience in operating integrated resorts with CTF and FEC’s international hospitality operations, mixed use development expertise and strong links into Chinese and other Asian markets,” Mr Bekier said.
All of the companies are expected to present fully developed proposals to the Queensland government late this year. The winning bid will be announced in early 2015 but no construction is expected to start before January 2017, with possible completion by 2020.
Echo has plans for a large-scale redevelopment of Brisbane’s Treasury Casino site that includes a six-star hotel featuring 90 luxury rooms, a 600-seat function room plus exclusive restaurants.
