Century Properties Group says it has obtained a court order stopping companies controlled by Kazuo Okada from terminating their deal to jointly develop Okada’s US billion Manila Bay Resorts.
Philippines-based Century said the injunction prevents Okada from negotiating with any other local partners to satisfy a government requirement that 60 percent of the land earmarked for the project be owned by Philippine entities.
Manila Bay Resorts is slated to open next year at a government-sponsored zone on Manila Bay called Entertainment City. The Okada consortium has engaged in several partnerships to satisfy the ownership requirement, but all of them have fallen apart. The deal with Century was part of a three-way deal with another Philippine company, First Paramount Holdings 888, that collapsed when First Paramount exited the venture, prompting Okada to terminate the partnership with Century, which had signed on to develop certain commercial and residential portions of the complex.
The original deal, signed in October 2013, would have made Century a 36 percent owner of Eagle I Landholdings, an Okada-controlled entity. First Paramount would have held 24 percent.
The Okada group holds one of four government-issued licenses for Entertainment City. PSX-listed Bloomberry Resorts opened the first of the resorts there, Solaire Resort and Casino, last March. The second, City of Dreams Manila, is scheduled to open this fall as part of a joint venture between Macau’s Melco Crown Entertainment and a subsidiary of Philippine retail giant SM Group. No firm date has been assigned for the fourth, a joint venture between Genting Hong Kong and Philippines property conglomerate Alliance Global.
