Though gaming operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) has filed for bankruptcy and its casino on Saipan has been closed since early 2021, IPI’s director and general manager continues to suggest that the Hong Kong-listed firm can complete construction of the resort and reopen.
According to the Saipan Tribune, Howyo Chi said last month that it would cost $150 million to finish the Imperial Pacific Palace in Garapan. Saipan is the largest island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a U.S. territory.
Edward C. DeLeon Guerrero, chairman of the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) reportedly asked Chi where IPI would get contractors to complete the construction, given the firm’s history of nonpayment and a five-year ban on the hiring of foreign workers that began in 2020.
Chi was noncommittal, but said the bankruptcy filing has paused receivership proceedings and IPI hopes to hire a new CEO “before we go live.”
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s High Court has ordered IPI to wind down operations. Trading in the company’s shares on the Hong Kong Exchange was suspended in April 2022, and a provisional liquidator has been appointed. Chi acknowledged that the company is broke, with creditors including the commission and commonwealth government owed up to $166 million.
Despite those obstacles, IPI issued a statement on the bankruptcy filing, calling it “part of a comprehensive plan to restructure … financial obligations and position the company for a resilient comeback in the dynamic gaming industry.”
Chi also noted, “We have arranged for sufficient debtor-in-possession financing that will ensure that IPI can meet its post-petition obligations, including making millions of dollars in payments to the Commonwealth Casino Commission once a settlement with the commission is finalized.”
In an op-ed in Inside Asian Gaming, Managing Editor Ben Blaschke fumed that the CCC “has bowed to (IPI’s) every demand and only weeks ago admitted it was again negotiating with IPI over a proposed settlement agreement under which IPI said it would repay US$24 million this year and a bit more in a decade or so’s time. Exactly where it thought IPI was going to find such cash has never quite been explained.
“As a friend said to me recently, ‘It’s like a girl whose boyfriend keeps cheating on her and all her mates tell her to leave him, only for him to cheat again the next week.’”
He concluded, “As the old saying goes, ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’”
