New unnamed investor in the wings
A casino resort briefly planned by Philippine fertilizer company Calata Corp. is apparently off the table. But it seems another investor has grabbed a license to operate there.
The proposed Mactan Leisure City was a project of Calata in partnership with the Sino-America Gaming Investment Group LLC and Macau Resources Group Ltd., which hoped to establish a real estate investment trust for the project. According to GGRAsia, the investors have backed off the $1.4 billion resort because of “perceived political risks and other issues in the country,” said a letter filed with the Philippine Stock Exchange.
However, the head of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. says another Filipino group has won a license to operate the $500 million Lapu-Lapu City Casino, the first large-scale resort outside Manila, according to Reuters.
Speaking at the ASEAN Gaming Summit last week, PAGCOR Chairwoman Andrea Domingo refused to disclose name of the firm, but hailed the location. “Cebu is the second-largest metropolis, and the local government units there are willing to give the required no-objection resolution for casinos to operate,” she said. “So it’s an attractive destination.”
Meanwhile, a Hong Kong-based firm has applied for a license to invest $300 million in a casino venture on the adjacent island of Mandaue, Domingo said.
The state-run gaming regulator has announced it will refrain from issuing new gaming licenses in Manila for the next five years by request of the resort operators already established there, including Universal Entertainment, Melco Crown and Bloomberry Resorts. “We listened to the people who were here, who took a risk when there was no one else here,” Domingo said.
Meanwhile, the coordinator of the Calata project still hopes to find backers for the casino, and could relocate outside Cebu. “We have been working with a particular group of foreign investors for the past 12 months to close this deal,” wrote Michael Foxman, CEO of RiskWise Global Capital Group, which is arranging the “real estate development, project planning, financing, construction and ongoing activities” for land held by Calata Land Inc. “However, due to their perceived political risks and other issues in the country, they have decided to retract their commitment to proceed.”
The document continued, “As with many foreign companies who had been working feverishly to undertake projects in the Philippines during 2016, we have experienced investor backlash as a result of political and social issues. These issues now having settled down, will enable us to renavigate foreign investor sentiment with the view that we can conclude our business aspirations, as initially planned, however, late.”
Foxman did not elaborate on the “political and social issues,” but said they were “beyond the control or influence of Calata, Sino-America and MRG. We would like to report however that we are now working diligently to create a commitment with another group that wishes to participate in this US$1.4-billion project.”
Foxman added that Calata anticipates “formalizing agreements with our new investment partner by May-June 2017.”
