A Macau investor promises to breathe new life into the beleaguered 13 Hotel in Coloane.
The 199-room luxury tower, a pet project of flamboyant entrepreneur Stephen Hung, targeted Macau’s once-dominant VIP sector. Designed by Hung with French Princess Tania de Bourbon Parme, it offered ornate suites with marble Roman baths and massive crystal chandeliers.
Other appointments included 24-hour butler service, private elevators and a fleet of 30 bespoke Rolls Royce Phantoms in a custom colour: “Stephen red”. One high-end suite went for $127,400 a night.
Ill-timed venture in post-VIP era
Hung, a Hong Kong billionaire and former Merrill Lynch advisor, once topped a South China Morning Post list of “crazy rich Asians” featured in the Netflix series “Bling Empire”. He envisioned a hotel on Macau’s Cotai Strip to rival the Palace of Versailles.
But the timing was wrong from the start. The 13 broke ground in 2013, the year Xi Jinping became president of the People’s Republic of China. The combination of Xi’s anti-ostentation campaign and a government crackdown on capital flight decimated Macau’s VIP segment.
Worse, The 13, which planned to operate a satellite casino with 66 gaming tables, was denied a gaming licence. That was a body blow, as its target demographic – big-spending high rollers – preferred to stay where they play.
The hotel operated for less than two years, from August 2018 to February 2020, closed at the start of the pandemic and went bankrupt in 2023. It finally reopened last year, when the Macau Government Tourism Office renewed its hotel licence.
Buyer ‘confident’ in Macau market
The new owner, identified by Macau realtor Jones Lang Lasalle only as “a local buyer”, got a deal, if not a steal.
According to Macau Daily Times, the hotel, listed for $2.4 billion in March 2024, sold for just $76 million. It will be “fully renovated”, per Mark Wong, senior manager of JLL Macau.
Though mass-market gambling has supplanted VIP as the chief revenue driver, the buyer “is very confident about the local market”, Wong added. “The property will remain a hotel and the buyer will invest and revitalise it.”
Macau’s 13 Hotel has a new owner. A local investor has scooped up the distinctive red tower, built for the city’s once-flush VIP sector.