Hong Kong billionaire Tony Fung is one step closer to his dream of building an Aussie casino. And not just any casino, but the country’s most lavish resort after winning approval to purchase a neighboring casino.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this week decided it would not oppose a planned $269 million takeover of the existing Reef Hotel Casino in Cairns by Fung’s Aquis Group.
Aquis also plans to build Australia’s biggest tourist attraction — Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort — at Yorkeys Knob. The fact that the two casinos are only 15km apart from each other initially drew concerns from the ACCC, but those fears have been allayed.
ACCC commissioner, Jill Walker, was confident that there was likely to be limited crossover between the two operations, staring that the planned Aussie casino resort would attract international VIPs, while the existing Cairns casino would still target local Aussie punters and domestic tourists.
Tony Fung is a Hong Kong-born Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He is the eldest son of Fung King Hey, the legendary founder of Sun Hung Kai Finance in Hong Kong. He is the founder of the Fairchild Group, a 350 million-dollar media and real estate empire, the builder of Asian-theme shopping malls and Chinese-language television networks and radio stations.
Time Magazine (Canadian edition) named him one of the most influential people in Canada. In 2011, he received an honorary degree from the University of British Columbia.
