Sands to resume work on stalled Cotai casino resort

It will be twice the size of the Venetian Macao, currently the world's largest casino. And at a total projected cost of US$4.42 billion it will be nearly twice as expensive.

But for the past 18 months it has languished as an eyesore on Macau's skyline - a half-built and half-funded dark spot on the increasingly glittering Cotai strip.

That is about to change. Following months of delays, developer Sands China appears at last to have secured the necessary US$1.75 billion bank loans needed to resume work on the 6,000-room resort project the company refers blandly to as 'Parcels Five and Six'.

'We're going to close Friday. No later than Monday,' Sands China chief executive Steve Jacobs said yesterday of the financing package.

Sands plans to use the loans along with US$500 million in proceeds from its stock market listing to finish work on the first two phases of 'Five and Six'. The initial phases include a casino and Sheraton, Shangri-La and Traders branded hotels that are planned to open in stages from the third quarter of 2011. Remaining construction will cost US$2.24 billion on top of the US$1.75 billion Sands has already spent on the project.

A third phase to be funded and built at a later date will cost US$435 million and will add a St Regis branded hotel and apartment-hotel.

Sands had been forced to suspend work on the project in November 2008 after running out of funds in the wake of the financial crisis, laying off around 11,000 builders.