Las Vegas firm sells stake in Bloomberry

The Las Vegas-based management firm that was earlier booted out of Solaire Resort & Casino has unloaded its 8.7-percent stake in Bloomberry Resorts Corp. at a discount, prompting the gaming firm to go on a six-day trading suspension starting yesterday.

Global Gaming Philippines LLC (GGAM) sold 921.18 million common shares of Solaire developer and operator Bloomberry to the open market at around P8.05 per share for a total block price of P7.42 billion, a company source confirmed Thursday.

This marked a discount of around 10 percent from Wednesday’s closing price of P8.98 per share.

Bloomberry requested for the trading suspension at the local bourse, citing the need to clarify the impact of the arbitration proceedings with GGAM.

It noted that the 8.7-percent stake sold by GGAM was the subject of the counterclaim of Bloomberry group in the arbitration proceedings.

For its part, the Philippine Stock Exchange granted the trading suspension request. Trading of Bloomberry’s shares will resume on Jan. 24.

GGAM is a unit of a Las Vegas-based casino investor, developer and manager of casino properties that also operates in Macau and Singapore.

Bloomberry’s Solaire, which debuted early last year, was the first gaming hub to open at Pagcor Entertainment City.

When Bloomberry terminated the management contract with GGAM for Solaire four months ago, it claimed that the latter had breached their management services agreement (MSA).

As a consequence, Bloomberry also sacked Solaire’s chief operating officer Michael French, GGAM’s official representative.

But GGAM fought back by bringing the case for arbitration, claiming that it was Bloomberry that violated the MSA.

Shares of Bloomberry have fallen by about 25.7 percent since the legal squabble with GGAM erupted. Doris C. Dumlao