Nomura Comments On Macau's Growth Outlook

Harry Curtis of Nomura commented in a note on Friday that based on commentary from his primary data source in Macau, the current level of tables at Macau casinos may be “as good as it gets” and that the “current table allocations if well managed may possibly be sufficient to cope with demand.”

According to Curtis, these predictions are “startling” because there is no way that the current table count of 5,750 can service a market where there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in room capacity and visitation growth that will average 10 percent a year. The analyst adds that his data source's findings contradict the government's target of 7,500 tables.

Finally, Curtis notes that $20 billion of incremental investments is being made based on some reasonable allocation of unissued tables.