Bloomberry Resorts has raised about US$254 million in a private debt sale to fund the expansion of its Solaire Resort & Casino at the Entertainment City complex on Manila Bay.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Bloomberry said its subsidiary Sureste Properties and the latter’s Bloomberry Resorts and Hotels subsidiary raised PHP11.42 billion from institutional investors through what is known as a corporate notes facility with BRHI acting as the issuer and Sureste as guarantor.
Participating banks included BDO Unibank, BDO Leasing and Finance, BDO Private Bank, China Banking Corp., Robinsons Bank Corp. and United Coconut Planters Bank.
The proceeds are earmarked for construction of a second hotel tower with 300 suites, a 20,000-square-meter retail mall, a theater with up to 1,800 seats, a nightclub and parking for about 3,500 cars. The casino will be enlarged to include 200 more slot machines and 65 more table games.
Solaire opened last March at a cost of $750 million as the first of four destination-scale casinos licensed at Entertainment City by the Philippines government with the aim of boosting tourism and providing badly needed jobs. The second of the four, City of Dreams Manila, is slated to open this summer as a joint venture between Macau’s Melco Crown Entertainment and Philippine retail magnate Henry Sy. The others licensees are Japanese machine gaming giant Universal Entertainment and Travellers International Hotel group, a joint venture between Genting Hong Kong and Philippines property developer Alliance Global.
Solaire has struggled in the early going despite the high quality of the offering, which includes a five-star hotel totaling some 400 rooms, an array of fine dining and mid-market food and beverage offerings and the second-largest casino in the country after Travellers’ Resorts World Manila. The result was that Bloomberry, which is controlled by ports tycoon Enrique Razon, reportedly the third-wealthiest individual in the country, fired its operating partner and 8% shareholder, William Weidner’s Global Gaming Asset Management, in the latter part of last year, and litigation between the two is ongoing.
Third-quarter results, the most recent available, show Bloomberry posting a profit of PHP165 million ($3.6 million) in the third quarter on PHP4.87 billion of gaming revenue.
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