SOLAIRE Resort and Casino RICHARD REYES
LESS than a decade ago, Enrique K. Razon Jr. plunked in $1.2 billion to build the Philippines’ largest casino resort venture—a business where he had no previous experience—and not a few people thought he was playing with his chips recklessly, so to speak.
Today, his Solaire Casino and Resort gaming and entertainment complex is still not in the clear, but more and more signs are emerging that the massive gamble made by the ports tycoon, one of the country’s richest men, is paying off.
More importantly, it seems that not even the corruption crackdown in mainland China, which has resulted in thousands of vacant gaming tables in casinos across Asia, has curbed his enthusiasm for risk-taking in this already risky business.
“People have such a misconception of the problem with the Chinese gaming market,” Razon told the Inquirer in an interview. “Our relationship with China soured in 2011, so we never started off with China gamers because they could not come here. Some of them had visa issues.”
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So from the outset, Bloomberry Resorts Corp., the publicly listed holding company for his gaming and leisure business, tapped markets other than the Chinese gamblers sought after by other gaming centers like Macau, Singapore and Korea.
“We focused on other high rollers,” Razon said. “We had Chinese coming from Macau, Hong Kong, and we developed a good market in Taiwan. We have a very good market in Malaysia, and then other countries followed.”
