Swiss banking group UBS AG has reportedly become a substantial stakeholder in Silver Heritage Group Limited after Monday saw it acquire just over 39.12 million shares in the Asian casino operator.
According to a report from GGRAsia, UBS AG had held around 5.07 million shares in the Hong Kong-based casino operator via its UBS Securities Australia subsidiary while its total shareholding in the Sydney-listed gambling firm now stands at some 10.9%.
Silver Heritage Group Limited 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 also holding interests in gaming venues in Laos and Cambodia.
Led by Hong Kong-born Mike Bolsover as Managing Director and President, Silver Heritage Group Limited is moreover spending $51.8 million to build the Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa venue in Nepal only about seven miles from that nation’s border with India. The firm revealed in March that it had already finished about 90% of the infrastructure for the new scheme, which is set to feature a 26,597 sq ft casino offering an assortment of 200 slots and 52 gaming tables, along with 80% of its hospitality areas and could begin welcoming guests from late-September.
Silver Heritage Group Limited reportedly launched an accelerated and fully underwritten entitlement offer late last month that was designed to bring in up to $14.4 million to help it complete the Nepalese development. This campaign saw eligible shareholders permitted to subscribe to two new shares for each existing share they held as of July 4 at an offer price of four cents each with proceeds to additionally be utilized to provide working capital and pay for the entitlement campaign.
The Australian Securities Exchange had granted Silver Heritage Group Limited a temporary suspension of its stock in late-February after the casino operator revealed that progress on its Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa had run into “temporary unexpected delays” that included “a shortage of liquidity in the Nepal banking system. But, the entitlement offer means that the company is now back up and trading while it also declared last week that it had been granted permission by Nepalese banking authorities to transfer cross-border approximately $48.3 million to “comfortably [cover] the remaining capital requirement expenditure within Nepal to complete and open the Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa”.