Resorts World Bimini’s majority owner has slammed the property as a “financial failure” and labelled it as the “poorest performing resort investment” in its worldwide hospitality empire.

Genting Americas, in legal arguments calling for the dismissal of Gerardo Capo’s $600m damages claim against it, admitted that the $310m spent on constructing Bimini’s largest resort was too “expensive” and the property had “failed to attract sufficient patrons” to generate the cash flow and profits needed to repay this financing.

And the Malaysian-headquartered conglomerate, in its September 12, 2025, filings with the south Florida federal court, revealed that Resorts World Bimini’s immediate parent company has “only paid off 0.1 percent of its $600m liabilities” incurred in constructing a property that has never made a profit and covering its substantial annual operating losses.

Describing its partnership with Mr Capo’s RAV Bahamas, which holds a minority 22 percent ownership interest in Resorts World Bimini, as “a failing joint venture”, Genting’s legal arguments give no signal that it intends to close Resorts World Bimini to halt the financial bleeding. However, its partner has previously accused the 78 percent majority owner of attempting to sell the resort behind its back.

Genting’s admission that Bimini’s largest employer is a “failure” comes as between 150-200 Resorts World employees were last week given notice to vacate their employer-provided housing, where some have lived for up to seven-eight years, by end-September.

There is nothing that explicitly links this move to the Malaysian conglomerate’s south Florida legal filings, or any indication that it plans to shutter a property that employs several hundred Bahamians. Still, the assertion that guest numbers have been inadequate to support Resorts World’s financial needs explains why the Government has pushed the $70m expansion project for Bimini’s airport.

That public-private partnership (PPP) with the Bimini Airport Development Partners group, which was intended to equip the airport to receive international commercial airline flights, may be showing signs of paying-off as American Airlines has announced it will launch three weekly flights to the island from Miami starting in mid-February 2026. That could provide a much-needed boost to Resorts World Bimini’s guest numbers.

Still, in the meantime, Genting argued it “beggars belief” that RAV Bahamas would accuse it of making Resorts World Bimini “a financial wasteland” by dumping hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities incurred elsewhere in its global empire on the loss-making property. This is because, as 78 percent majority owner, it would bear far more of the resulting debt and financial burden.

“There is no dispute that BB Entertainment has been a financial failure; it is the Genting Group’s poorest performing resort investment,” the Malaysian conglomerate blasted in legal filings obtained by Tribune Business. BB Entertainment is Resorts World Bimini’s immediate holding company, whose ownership is split 78/22 with RAV Bahamas in favour of Genting.

“It was expensive to construct and furnish, and it has failed to attract sufficient patrons,” Genting added of the resort. “Throughout, the Genting group has backstopped and propped up BB Entertainment with the aim of turning it around. This has included well over $300m from the Genting Group to pay for the construction, provide working capital and cover the resort’s operating losses.

“RAV’s sole contribution was $22.5m worth of land in exchange for 22 percent of the shares of BB Entertainment The notion that the Genting group would purposefully make BB Entertainment a ‘financial wasteland’ and a failed resort casino project, despite having the vast majority of the economic interest (and debt) in the success of the business, just because RAV as a 22 percent shareholder would shoulder its share of the costs, beggars belief.”

Genting owns multiple resort and casino properties, including three in Malaysia; one in Singapore; three in the US in Las Vegas in New York, Las Vegas and the Catskills; and another in Birmingham in the UK where it also operates more than 30 casinos in London and the provinces. Labelling Resorts World Bimini as its “poorest performer” is not a good look for the tourism-dependent Bahamas.

Genting, in its latest update to shareholders for the 2025 second quarter and first half, gave a slightly more promising outlook for Resorts World Bimini’s prospects by revealing the property had produced “higher revenue” and an “improved operating performance” for the six months to end-June this year.

As for efforts to drive visitor traffic and improve the hotel and casino complex’s performance, it added: “In The Bahamas, Genting will continue to strengthen its partnership with international cruise operators to increase port calls at Resorts World Bimini. Concurrently, Genting will maintain emphasis on financial discipline and operating efficiency to enhance profitability.”

Mr Capo and RAV Bahamas, in their initial lawsuit and subsequent amended complaint, alleged that Genting Americas had perpetrated “a massive and co-ordinated fraud” that left the real estate and other assets it contributed to their Bimini partnership “essentially worthless”.

It is essentially accusing Genting of using its 78 percent majority ownership, plus Board and management control, to conceal how it “dumped” hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities incurred elsewhere in its global empire on to the Bimini resort’s books. However, in its latest shareholder update, Genting branded the claims as “baseless and without merit”, and pledged to “strenuously defend” itself.

 “Despite receiving in discovery more than 100,000 e-mails and accounting records spanning over one million pages, and having notice of Genting Americas’ arguments about the inadequacy of its original claims, RAV’s allegations remain substantially the same as what RAV initially pled, and are all premised on the exact same unavailing theory,” Resorts World Bimini’s majority owner argued.

“In RAV’s view, BB Entertainment was charged too much for administrative services provided to BB Entertainment by Genting Americas as well as other related entities directly or indirectly owned by Genting... Against this backdrop, RAV fails to support any of its claims with facts despite incorporating nearly 80 exhibits.

“Apart from an unsupported statement purportedly made by Ed Farrell in March 2020 regarding $150m of liabilities, RAV makes no other particularised allegations that anyone at Genting Americas thought the allocations of expenses and other charges to BB Entertainment’s financial statements were improper.

“Despite working with expert forensic accountants since at least December 2024, RAV fails to plead specifically how BB Entertainment’s accounting is false, what the numbers should be, or what accounting rules have allegedly been violated.” Mr Farrell, former Genting Americas president, allegedly told a Board meeting that $150m in liabilities were placed on Resorts World Bimini’s books because it was unsure what to do with them.

The Malaysian conglomerate, meanwhile, also hit back at RAV Bahamas’ criticisms of the sums spent to construct Resorts World Bimini’s 300-room resort and casino. “RAV’s feigned confusion over the magnitude of these costs is surprising given that OPAC Bahamas, an entity that it recognises as an ‘[a]ffiliate of RAV’, was the construction manager for Resorts World Bimini and, accordingly, was responsible for ‘manag[ing] and perform[ing] all construction-related activities’,” Genting blasted.

“To this day, RAV has never contributed any cash to BB Entertainment. Instead, all the cash necessary to construct and develop the resort was borrowed by BB Entertainment from various Genting Group companies, as shown in the audited financial statements and as conceded by RAV.

“RAV acknowledges that BB Entertainment spent $310m on construction, BB Entertainment had to borrow that money from BB Investment Holdings (BBIH) or other Genting Group companies. BB Entertainment had no other sources of funding. Contrary to RAV’s allegations, more than $310m was spent,” the Malaysian conglomerate added.

“The financial statements attached to the amended complaint, including the 2022 year-end financials, plainly show that BB Entertainment had incurred over $432m in costs for property, plant and equipment expenses, which included not only the cost of construction of the resort, but also furniture and equipment for the hotel and casino. All of those expenditures were paid by BB Entertainment using cash it borrowed.”

By October 2020, BB Entertainment, as Resorts World Bimini’s immediate parent, had already incurred $608m in liabilities. “RAV also complains about the amount of specific loans that BB Entertainment received from the Genting Group,” the resort’s majority owner added.

“For example, RAV alleges that several Genting entities lent $179m to BB Entertainment for its working capital needs as of 2016, an amount that it believes to be unjustified since the resort had only been fully operational for a few months. However, the financial statements make clear that the Genting Group lent these funds to provide financial support to BB Entertainment in an attempt to help the joint venture succeed.”

Genting added that multiple entities within its global network “regularly loaned money to BB Entertainment for operations, given that BB Entertainment lost money every year, as RAV concedes. RAV also admits that loans from other Genting Group entities have not been repaid and continue to accrue interest.

“Thus, a significant portion of BB Entertainment’s total expenses today consist of accrued interest expenses on an annual basis, and BB Entertainment has paid back very little of the $600m of these liabilities, largely because it has no net profits from which to do so,” Genting conceded.

“To-date, BB Entertainment has only paid off 0.1 percent of its $600m in liabilities. Notably, RAV does not allege that Genting Americas has ever withdrawn cash from BB Entertainment for improper purposes - like paying itself a dividend- as is often the allegation in fraud cases where defendants are alleged to have siphoned funds to insiders or for their own benefit.

“Loaning money to a failing joint venture may be at most poor business judgment, but alone it is not sufficient to show a fraud or violation” of US anti-corruption legislation. Genting also asserted that RAV Bahamas claims that it switched $201m from the Bimini SuperFast ferry operation to Resorts World Bimini’s books in another liability “dump” was merely a loan to prop up the resort and cover its losses.

“Even with the benefit of discovery of more than 100,000 documents, RAV’s complaint remain substantively the same: While RAV throws around words about fraud and conspiracies, at bottom, RAV is just dissatisfied with routine business judgments Genting Americas made relating to BB Entertainment, a failing resort,” Genting concluded.