What’s in a name? Paul Y. Engineering Group Ltd. (PYE), the property development subsidiary of ports and infrastructure firm PYI Corporation Ltd. that is building a boutique casino in Macau’s Coloane district, has decided to change its name to (seriously) Louis XIII Holdings Ltd. Amazingly, shareholders approved the name-change this week at the company’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) in Hong Kong, possibly because they had imbibed way too much of the Remy Martin cognac which bears the late French monarch’s name.
Anyway, Louis XIII (the company) plans to commence construction prep on Louis XIII (the casino-hotel) this month, with a completion date expected in Q4 2015 or Q1 2016. When finished, the hotel will feature 230 rooms ranging from the merely spacious (2k square feet) to royalty-ready (20k square feet). Louis XIII chairman Stephen Hung released a statement saying the new name “captures the essence of the unprecedented, über-luxury experience we are offering wealthy guests.”
In keeping with the ‘let them eat cake’ theme, the company has already signed up ritzy jeweler Graff Diamonds to occupy one of the shops in its retail area. In case you missed the ‘begone, peasants’ message, a Louis XIII press release last month stated that all luxury items up for grabs in its retail area “will have a minimum price of US $1 million.” (Pity the poor kid who has to show up at school wearing the ‘My parents went to Macau and all I got was this lousy diamond-encrusted T-shirt.’) Good thing their target market is “wealthy Chinese business tycoons,” because those impoverished business tycoons are so last year.
Meanwhile, Hung played coy with the media as to the source of the gaming license under which Louis XIII plans to operate. While speculation has it that the license comes courtesy of Melco Crown Entertainment (MCE) – which already has a working relationship with PYE – Hung told media attending the EGM that it was “not convenient to reveal at the moment” the identity of Louis XIII’s benefactor. Hung is still waiting on Macau gaming regulators to okay the presence of 66 gaming tables (16 VIP, 50 ‘premium mass’) on Louis XIII’s opulent gaming floor. Regardless, Hung is planning on setting minimum wagers at HK $5k (US $644), which, when you think about it, seems pretty reasonable for a joint selling $1m Marie Antoinette bobble-heads.
