Macau Legend partners with Setúbal municipality to build resort, marina

Maria das Dores Meira

David Chow’s Macau Legend Development Limited (MLD) signed agreements yesterday that aim to specify the company’s offerings in a new integrated resort to be built in the Portuguese coastal city of Setúbal.
The possibility of the resort to include gaming elements is also being considered. Together with the memorandum of understanding signed between the Macau company and the Portuguese municipality there is another document that aims to specify the participation of MLD in a partnership that includes B&G, the company which currently holds the Tróia Design Hotel with a small casino (Casino Tróia).
“Tróia Design Hotel Company is injecting their casino into our new company at a valuation of EUR40 million,” said Sheldon Trainor-DeGirolamo, executive director of MLD, adding, “It is an existing asset, an existing casino so what we want to do is not only integrate Tróia and Setúbal as an integrated project but also combine our efforts between Portugal and Cape Verde, [in the same manner] that Laos is an extension of Macau. The latter allows us to move into the ASEAN market and helps to facilitate the growth of our costumers,” said the executive director of MLD.
“We are an international company and business-wise, any location is important in to our company,” added David Chow.
During his speech yesterday, the chairman of the MLD noted that, “Tróia city is located within a short distance [of the MLD project], around 8 minutes by sea lane and that is going to allow the cooperation of MLD with a local company named ‘B&G’,” said David Chow.
“Today we signed two agreements; we signed a memorandum of understanding with the Setúbal municipal government and we also signed an agreement with the owners of the Tróia Design Hotel with the mechanics that I spoke about [regarding] the injection of their hotel asset and casino license into the new company that we will be investing alongside,” confirmed Trainor-DeGirolamo.
For the project in Portugal, the Macau company will invest a total of EUR150 million in the first phase (approximately MOP1.3 billion), of which EUR50 million will be directly invested by MLD with the remaining EUR100 million coming by form of a loan that is being sought by the company.
The investment of MLD will represent a 55 percent share of the company that will build and manage the project.
Questioned on the sidelines of the event, and although is it too soon to talk about details of the project as they are yet to go through several stages of assessment by the Portuguese government, Chow expressed the intentions of the company to “make things move ahead faster. That’s why the memorandum that we have singed today with support of the local government is very important,” he said.
As for the Setúbal Municipality, the Mayor Maria das Dores Meira, highlighted the positive impact of the project in the city and region, noting that tourism and heavy industry are the main business sectors, and expressing hopes that this project can bring both social and economic growth in the municipality. In terms of the economy, it is hoped that the project will lead to the creation of local jobs, which the Mayor estimates could fall in the range of 1,000 to 3,000 new positions when all of the project’s phases are completed.
However, Meira also noted that the process now beginning is “complex,” recalling that “we are in a territory that has several managing authorities,” and there is a need for a “detailed plan in which all entities are united and in agreement with the transformation of the area under the Macau Legend project,” she said.
Meira added that the approval for such a plan “could take from 6 months to 1 year.” That is why, she said, there is lack of a timeline for the implementation of the project from the Macau Legend side.
The project, as presented by David Chow in his speech will occupy a total area of 181,000 square meters including a 94,300 square-meter marina that will serve as a pier and for other maritime purposes, and an integrated resort with several hotels, restaurants, retail shops, apartments and other facilities.
Setúbal city is located just across the Sado River Estuary from Tróia on the Southwest of the Country and about 40 kilometers south of Lisbon, the country’s capital.