Merkado Barkada
October 29, 2025 | 8:00am
Bloomberry [BLOOM] [link] has announced its exit from the casino business in South Korea, marking the end of a decade-long effort to sell its underperforming venture. In a disclosure on Oct. 24, 2025, BLOOM said its South Korean indirect subsidiary, Golden & Luxury Co. Ltd. (G&L), will spin off and subsequently sell its casino business on Jeju Island to Gangwon Blue Mountain Co. Ltd., which has made a down payment of ?500 million. Since 2015, G&L has operated the Jeju Sun Hotel and Casino, which has been on the market for several years as its operations continue to struggle to recover from the pandemic-induced downturn. Jeju Sun’s gross gaming revenue dropped 93% in the second quarter to P2.5 million.
MB bottom-line: This sale has been a looooong time coming. For those who have been reading BLOOM’s quarterly and annual reports for a while, as I have, BLOOM’s Korean assets almost pop off the page through all the notes and analysis for their sheer waste. I’m not sure what took BLOOM so long to make this sale since the Korean assets have been sad and lame for years, and BLOOM’s owner, Enrique Razon, is known to be a quick and decisive operator. It’s crazy, because the first time it occurred to me that BLOOM should sell, it was when physical casinos were hot and I wanted them to deploy all the capital into that business. The next time I thought that, it was when BLOOM was breaking into the digital gaming space when e-gaming was hot and I wanted them to deploy all the capital into that business. That’s why Ricky’s the best: he knows when to hold em. Or at least he knows how to look like he knows.
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