Chen Lip Keong – Billionaire

Chen Lip Keong’s NagaCorp holds a monopoly on gambling in Phnom Penh and NagaWorld is the largest casino in Cambodia. He leases 2 Airbus A320s to fly in customers from Macau and mainland China. The company, which listed in Hong Kong in 2006, is expanding with a new casino called Naga 2, aiming to attract more Chinese tourists with mainland partners such as state-run China Travel Service. He also controls Karambunai, a Malaysia-listed property developer and tourism company. He trained as a medical doctor before turning to property development.

When Chen Lip Keong won Cambodia’s first casino license in 1994, he had hardly ever stepped inside a casino. He’d been to Malaysia’s Genting Highlands once on a date in the 1970s and visited Las Vegas once as a tourist. Casinos are “not in my blood; I’m not a gambler,” he says. Yet today, renowned casino architect Paul Steelman calls Chen “one of the most powerful creators of these properties in the world.”

This self-proclaimed “accidental” gambling billionaire is the chief executive and majority shareholder of NagaCorp. Its NagaWorld casino-resort complex in the capital Phnom Penh boasts 1,700 guest rooms, 600 gaming tables and more than 5,000 gaming machines. Despite his gambling aversion, he bet $369 million of his own money to build Naga2, an opulent twin-tower extension opened in November that features nine floors of guest rooms for high rollers with adjoining private gaming rooms. And soon there’ll be a 2,200-seat theater where Chen is aiming to host the likes of Lady Gaga, a favorite of his. The addition makes Cambodia and NagaWorld first-rank contenders in Asia’s $51 billion casino market.

Along the way this native of Malaysia has helped Cambodia recover from decades of upheaval. The country’s gross domestic product has grown by 7.5% a year since 1994, putting it among the world’s top performers. Only 118,163 people visited the country in 1993, according to the ministry of tourism; that figure topped 5.6 million last year, with 7 million expected by 2020. Tourism accounted for more than 12% of Cambodia’s GDP last year — and Naga has claimed a hand in 25% of it.

Amid the rising tide of tourists, Naga is booming. Last year net profits soared 23%, to $255 million, on an 80% jump in revenue, to $956 million. VIP roll — or losing bets — more than doubled, to $21.1 billion, accelerating after the launch of Naga2. NagaCorp’s $4 billion market capitalization represents an 11-fold appreciation since it listed in Hong Kong in 2006, and it consistently outperforms other gambling stocks. “We’re antigravity,” says Chen.

Source:

1. forbes