Multiple delays plague project
The Silver Heritage Group has announced it will spend an additional $13.8 million to complete its oft-delayed Nepal casino project, now set to open before the end of 2017. That puts the price of the Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa at AU$70.3 million (US$53.5 million). The original cost had been estimated at AU$52.3 million (US$39.8 million).
In a filing with the Australian Stock Exchange, the Asian casino company said it expects the resort hotel to be ready for a soft opening in August, with the remainder of the facilities expected to open in November.
“Construction of Tiger Palace Resort has made good progress,” the company reported in an email to CalvinAyre.com. “Infrastructure is 90 percent complete, hospitality is 80 percent complete, and casino and public areas are already 60 percent complete. However, there is a delay to opening and an overrun on budget.”
Last month, Silver Heritage posted a US$4.58 million net loss due to the ongoing construction. But in a regulatory filing on March 29, the company said its annual loss is 14 percent lower than it had predicted during its initial public offering in August 2016.
It has high hopes for Tiger Palace Resort, which it calls “the first purpose-built integrated resort in South Asia” on Nepal’s border with India.
GGRAsia reports that Silver Heritage has started raising money—“the details of which are still being finalized”—to cover the increased costs of development.“Once the capital raising exercise is completed, management expects that the construction of Tiger Palace will be fully funded,” said a filing from the company.In addition to the inflated budget, Silver Heritage will need US$1 million as working capital for Tiger Palace.
The company’s shares are in voluntary suspension on the Australian Securities Exchange and will stay that way until the details of the capital raising are completed.
Forbes reports that proximity alone positions Silver Heritage for success. “India has legal casinos for its 1.3 billion people, many keen punters, in just two states,” the magazine stated. All of those casinos are far from Tiger Resort’s target markets of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, “with 430 million people within a six hour drive of the casino,” the report continued.
“Silver Heritage is a long-term play in the midst of a short-term delay,” the magazine concluded.
