The company that opened Manila’s Solaire Resort & Casino then was fired amid the property’s early struggles has been freed to sell its sizable stake in Solaire’s corporate owner.
An arbitration panel in Singapore has lifted a freeze a Philippine court leveled earlier this year on Global Gaming Asset Management’s holding in Bloomberry Resorts (PSE: BLOOM), which represented a little less than 9% of the company’s equity when GGAM exercised an option on the stock shortly before Solaire’s US$750 million debut in March 2013.
BLOOM closed at 12.36 Philippine pesos ($0.02) on Friday.
Solaire opened to acclaim as the first of four super-resorts licensed at Entertainment City, a 120-hectare reclamation area on Manila Bay sponsored by the Philippine government to leverage casinos to attract foreign tourism and investment. GGAM, founded by William Weidner, a former president of Las Vegas Sands, was contracted to develop and run the resort, but Bloomberry terminated the relationship when Solaire stumbled out of the gate. Bloomberry accused GGAM of breach of contract, alleging the company did not direct sufficient attention to managing the property. GGAM has disputed the charge before the arbitration panel.
It’s likely the shares will continued to be tied up in litigation, however. In seeking the injunction, Bloomberry argued they were subject to counterclaims by some of its subsidiaries. The arbitrators didn’t address that issue, but in allowing GGAM “to freely deal with, including sell, the shares,” they denied GGAM’s request “to be declared full legal and beneficial owner of the shares free of any claims, liens or encumbrances”.
Solaire has since achieved profitability, recently adding more than 60 table games to its VIP offering as part of a marketing strategy refined under new management and heavily weighted to the region’s high-rollers and the junkets who recruit them. Bloomberry posted a profit of PHP3.3 billion ($74 million) through September on revenue of PHP22.4 billion, up 127 percent from a year earlier.
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