Philippine Billionaire Enrique Razon’s Bloomberry To Invest In Tycoon Dennis Uy’s Casino Projects

Bloomberry Resorts—controlled by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr.—has signed a deal to invest in Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy’s casino resort projects in the central Philippine island of Cebu and at the former Clark Airbase in Pampanga, north of Manila.

PH Travel and Leisure Corp., a unit of Uy’s PH Resorts Group Holdings, and Bloomberry, which owns and operates the Soliare casino resort in Manila, announced that the companies have signed a term sheet in separate regulatory filings with the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Financial details of the deal, which is subject to approval by regulators and creditors, were not disclosed.

Razon is expanding his casino resort footprint across the Philippines as the business recovers from pandemic lows. Bloomberry’s net loss narrowed to 4.3 billion pesos ($82 million) in 2021 from 8.3 billion pesos the previous year as gross gaming revenues improved 22% to 27.6 billion pesos.

“The year 2021 demonstrated the resilience of our business amidst a pandemic characterized by a slowly recovering economy and the absence of tourism,” Razon, chairman and CEO of Bloomberry, said in statement when the company announced the results in March. “Compared to 2020, it was a better year for Bloomberry as it was propped up by the domestic patronage.”

Bloomberry’s proposed investment in PH Travel will expand its presence to Cebu where PH Travel is building Emerald Bay on a 12.4 hectare beachfront hotel property with gaming amenities, and Clark Global City where PH Travel is developing an integrated casino resort. The properties are the latest assets Uy is divesting after selling his company’s shares in logistics firms 2GO Group Inc. to the Sy family’s SM Investments Corp. in June last year.

Once the deal is completed, Bloomberry will have four integrated casino resorts in the Philippines including the new Solaire property in Quezon City in northern Metro Manila that is set to open next year. It also has a stake in the Jeju Hotel & Casino in South Korea.

Razon—who also has the controlling stake in global port giant International Container Terminal Services Inc.—has been stepping up investments in utilities in recent years. In June 2021, Trident Water, a subsidiary of his infrastructure-focused Prime Strategic Holdings, took control of water utility Manila Water from Ayala Corp. Razon has a net worth of $6.4 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time data.