Asian casino operator Silver Heritage Group has increased the budget for its under-construction Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa in Nepal by over 34% and begun raising additional funds to cover the escalating costs.

Sydney-listed Silver Heritage Group had initially intended to inaugurate the development complete with a 26,597 sq ft casino offering 200 slots and 52 gaming tables in October but later delayed this opening to February. This deadline subsequently slipped due to “temporary unexpected delays” that included “a shortage of liquidity” in the local banking system while the firm was last month granted a suspension of its stock by the Australian Securities Exchange as it looked for ways to raise enough cash to finish the project located approximately seven miles from the Nepalese border with India.

Silver Heritage Group has now revealed that the budget for its Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa will stand at $53.8 million, which is 34.5% higher than the $40 million originally forecast, while it currently intends open the development’s hotel in August before inaugurating its casino in November.

“Once the capital raising exercise is completed, management expects that the construction of Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa will be fully funded,” read a Thursday filing from Silver Heritage Group to the Australian Securities Exchange.

The filing from Hong Kong-based Silver Heritage Group additionally explained that the $13.8 million in additional funding now needed to complete the Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa will encompass about $6.8 million for its hospitality, casino and hotel public areas due to “concerns over [the] quality of locally produced product” along with approximately $3 million to remedy “variations to original plans in particular to casino and public areas”. The firm declared that just over $2.2 million was moreover needed to satisfy pre-operating expenses such as “costs associated with completion delay” while it was setting aside in excess of $1.5 million for any “unforeseen events, delays and other increases in budget”.

“Construction of Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa has made good progress [with] infrastructure 90% complete, hospitality 80% complete [and] casino and public areas 60% complete,” read the Thursday filing.

Silver Heritage Group was established in 2003 and received its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in August. It manages and operates the Phoenix International Club near Hanoi, which is one of only seven licensed casinos in the whole of Vietnam, as well as The Millionaire’s Club And Casino inside Kathmandu’s Shangri La Hotel And Resort while holding interests in gaming venues in Laos and Cambodia.

Earlier this month saw the company state that its Special Projects Executive Director, Hugh Holmes, had resigned and that it had installed a new management team led by casino industry veteran Adam Titus, who has been involved with projects such as the MGM Macau and the Okada Manila developments.