Angel Playing Cards has bought back more than US$300,000 worth of shoes and decks it previously sold to Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC in one of the first major transactions under an auction of the Saipan casino operator’s equipment.
As reported by Inside Asian Gaming, casino gaming equipment owned by IPI is back on the market and set to be auctioned off from next month after a local court lifted a stay on the sale.
According to the Saipan Tribune, Angel has already reached an agreement with receiver Clear Management Ltd, a company headed by veteran industry executive Tim Shepherd, to repurchase cards and shoes to the value of US$301,500. This includes all 201 Super Angel Eye dealing shoes in the custody and control of Clear Management at a unit price of US$1,500 and all decks of Angel playing cards at the unit price of 10 cents per deck.
It is reported that Angel had previously sold a total of 1,935,360 decks of cards to IPI although it is unclear how many of those are unused and in Clear Management’s possession.
It is reported that a judge has agreed to Clear Management’s request to have the funds transferred to an escrow account ahead of the official first auction date of 7 October.
The sale of shoes and cards to Angel comes almost a year after an original plan to run six auctions for the equipment was put on hold following an offer from IPI to place around US$2 million into an escrow account pending judgement of a related court matter. The auctions were delayed even further when IPI said it was to receive US$150 million in funding from an investor which would allow it to settle outstanding debts.
That investment has never materialized, with Clear Management ow called back in to resume the asset sale.
Shepherd told IAG recently, “We have been on standby as the legal wrangling continued.
“Our concern obviously has been that this highly valuable gaming equipment has spent another year in the humid, muggy environment of a shuttered casino on a tropical island.
“The good news is that IPI bought from world class suppliers like Light & Wonder and Aristocrat, so the equipment we have seen is still in very good shape indeed. There is a lot of equipment that has never come out of its box.
“Also the industry has picked up globally and we have already been approached by new interested parties keen to feed demand for great casino equipment scarcely or not at all used in an auction like this.”
