Melco prepares $340M back-up credit facility for PH gaming unit

AP File Phone.

MANILA, Philippines — The Melco Crown group of Macau is preparing a back-up credit facility worth as much as $340-million for its Philippine gaming unit in case a previously announced private debt offering isn’t completed as intended by the end of January in 2014.

The locally listed gaming unit, Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts Corp. (MCP), the SM group’s partner in developing a $1.3-billion integrated entertainment and gambling complex called “City of Dreams Manila” at Pagcor Entertainment City, earlier announced that it was raising P15 billion through a private offering through a subsidiary MCE Leisure (Philippines) Corp.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday, MCP said its controlling shareholder MCE (Philippines) Investments Ltd. has committed to provide such a $340-million term loan facility to itself and to MCE Leisure.

MCP, together with Belle Corp. and Premium Leisure Amusement Inc., is a holder of a provisional license from the state-controlled Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.  Its subsidiary MCE Leisure is responsible for the furniture, fixtures and equipment, including gaming equipment, working capital expenses, non-real property improvement and personal property as well as the management and operation of the gaming project.

“The shareholder loan is intended to be a back-up facility arrangement and it is currently expected that it will only be utilized by the borrower in the unlikely event that the senior notes offering consisting of P15 billion 5-percent senior notes due 2019 priced on Dec. 19 will not be completed,” the disclosure said.

City of Dreams Manila is expected to be completed by mid-2014.

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