Pandemic pushes back Bloomberry’s Solaire North completion to 2023
BLOOMBERRY Resorts Corp., the gambling arm of billionaire Enrique K. Razon Jr., has pushed back the completion of its Solaire north in Quezon City due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the company’s stockholders’ meeting conducted online, Razon said the company will complete the 40-story integrated gaming and resort facility by the end of 2022 or early 2023, which he said is “just right.” “Construction has partially restarted and the period of lockdown can be reasonably added to the completion date. We strongly believe that the timing of Solaire north could well coincide with a full economic recovery,” he said.
Its flagship Solaire Resort and Casino in Entertainment City in Parañaque has recently opened to a limited capacity on June 15, and Razon said it is too early to give an indication of how the business will perform.
“Our number one priority now is to ensure the safety and well-being of our guests and employees. We have invested heavily and have gone to extreme lengths to make Solaire and our guests as sanitized and safe as possible. We have taken every precaution and beyond with meticulous attention to the most minute detail to achieve this,” he said.
“We have acquired and installed the most technologically advanced cleaning and disinfecting devices, materials, and equipment globally available. We are testing and training all our employees, suppliers, contractors three times a month in our own adjacent testing facility, and will continue to do this for the foreseeable future. I am confident when I say that there is no safer facility for the public in the country today then Solaire."
He said the company may not be able to replicate its performance in the previous year “until the pandemic is over, in one way or another, whether it runs its course, or a vaccine is created in mass quantities.”
Solaire was shut down when the government placed the national Capital Region under lockdown starting mid-march. The hotel part remained open to house long term staying guests who elected to stay in the country rather then fly out once the lockdown was implemented.
Bloomberry said its net income fell 38 percent to P1.4 billion in the first quarter, from last year's P2.2 billion. Revenues declined as the lockdown halted its operations.
Consolidated net revenue in the first quarter was down 13 percent to P9.4 billion, from P10.8 billion in the same period last year.
Total gross gaming revenues at Solaire were down 10 percent to P12.2 billion, from last year's P13.6 billion. VIP revenues fell 21 percent to P4.7 billion, while mass table gambling and electronic gaming machines dipped by 2 percent to P3.9 billion and P3.6 billion, respectively.