Hong Kong taipan Tony Fung has announced his intention to convert the Sheraton Mirage in the Gold Coast, in Australia into a big casino resort.
The Hong Kong based gambling taipan’s latest purchase takes his total investment on the Gold Coast to $280 million.
The man behind the Aquis Resort, a massive development in Queensland, has announced his plans to renovate thebeachfront Sheraton Mirage and Marina Mirage into a casino complex.
Rumours are circulating that the Sheraton Mirage went for a cool $160 million. He will need to negotiate a new casino licence with the Queensland Government.
He already has big plans for Australian Casinos with a $8.15 billion investment to build the Aquis Great Barrier Reef casino resort in Cairns.
There is already a big casino on the Gold Coast : Jupiter’s at Broadbeach, which is run by Echo Entertainment.
Mr Fung is said to be worth about $6 billion- he’ll want to maket his casinos to the Chinese super rich and shift the Queensland economy away from mining and into tourism. Mr Fung has also laid $15.8m of chips down on Patinak farms in the Gold Coast Hinterland which qill be turned into a 5-star resort. He is betting big on Australia’s casinos and resorts.
Sheraton Mirage would be his flagship Down Under competing with the likes of Echo and James Packer.
The Marina Mirage site would house a new convention centre, dining, shopping, restaurants and bars.
Who Are The Fungs?
When Tony Fung and his son Justin landed in Cairns to expand their business empire, little was known about the billionaires.
Mr Fung Sr is a billionaire investor from Hong Kong and a former champion go-kart racer who once raced against Ayrton Senna. His son Justin has two degrees from American universities. These are the people behind the planned $4.2 billion Aquis mega-resort at Yorkeys Knob.
They are known for their exotic trips on their luxury yacht Asteria. But what are their plans exactly?
Well, nothing less than the Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort that will house an international casino, 9 top end hotels with 3750 rooms, 1200 apartments, 135 villas, 13,500sq m of luxury shopping, an aquarium, two theatres, a lagoon, a lake, an eighteen 8-hole golf course, a 25,000-seat sports stadium, and 45,000sq m of convention and exhibition space!
The resort will be family friendly- it’s not just going to be about the gambling.
Mr Fung Sr is a member of one of Hong Kong’s top banking families. His fortune was passed to him from his father Fung King Hey who founded Sun Hung Kai Securities. Known as “the godfather of traders”, he was at one time the largest shareholder in Merrill Lynch.
Fung King Hey made his money with his business partners, Kwok Tak Seng and Lee Shau Kee known collectively as the “3 musketeers”.
Tony Fung launched the stock trading firm Yu Ming Investments in 1996- so you could say he is a self made man- with a little help from Dad, of course. It’ll be interesting to see how this new mega resort pans out.
