James Packer the Chairman of Crown Ltd say that his companies expansion plans for Australia and Asia are totally affordable.
The Crown chairman said at the company’s annual general meeting that Crown was at a very important stage of its development as it seeks to tap into the “incredible power” of the rising Chinese and other Asian middle classes, including India, where his company is planning a casino resort in Sri Lanka.
Mr Packer said the expansion of Crown’s joint venture interests in Asia would be “self-funding”, and the company would increase its debt to expand in Australia and continue upgrading existing operations here.
“Asia is self-funding, and we’re going to build Sydney (a proposed $1.5 billion resort and VIP-only casino at Barangaroo) and Perth (a new six-star hotel) out of increasing our debt a little bit but retaining some earnings,” Mr Packer said.
He said the Melco Crown Entertainment (MCE) joint venture with Lawrence Ho has funded all of its own projects and was now almost debt free.
Mr Packer said that the proposal to build a joint-venture $US400 million casino-resort in Sri Lanka would not need “an earth-moving cheque”.
He said the joint venture Macau business would look to start paying dividends next year, which would provide additional cash.
