BIZ BUZZ: Warring casino-hotel partners
A big gaming firm is allegedly locked in a bitter dispute with its partner in a mid-sized casino-hotel venture near Entertainment City.
According to Biz Buzz sources, the firm is being sued for almost P3 billion for allegedly failing to meet contractual obligations like the promised hotel expansion and close to P600 million in unpaid rentals.
The gaming firm bought half of the mid-sized casino-hotel about 10 years ago with the promise to build a new tower and parking building to expand the hotel’s gaming area. The plan, however, never materialized.
To make matters worse, the gaming firm’s junket operation inside the same hotel was able to pay only P200 million in rentals out of the P800 million it owes for the leased gaming area dedicated to high-roller casino players.
While legal proceedings are ongoing between the warring partners, thousands of shareholders of the publicly listed gaming firm have been caught in the middle. Apparently, the case—which poses an existential threat to the company—was never disclosed to its shareholders.
Battered by a series of unfortunate events and an increasingly unfavorable political climate, the gaming company that was once the darling of the stock market has dipped in value in recent years.
Given current developments, the firm’s shareholders, including its major Chinese investor, have every reason to be concerned.
If the firm loses the case against its partner in the soured casino-hotel deal, its entire market capitalization may not even be enough to pay what it owes.
No wonder the company’s Chinese investor is reportedly busy offering material support, including use of its high-end private jets, to certain political candidates. But that, as they say, is another story. Watch this space for this unraveling corporate drama. —Daxim L. Lucas
Uber-exclusive ‘Project Rada’
Do you have an extra P285 million lying around? If you do, you will be able to afford the 578-square meter (sq m) penthouse suite of Arthaland’s newest uber-upscale condo project (internally codenamed “Project Rada,” because it’s located along Rada St. in Makati City).
But having the money alone isn’t enough. You’d still have to be vetted by the company if your money is good enough for them.
That’s because this new high rise residential building will have only 37 “limited edition” units for sale to potential homeowners. And because there will be so few of them, each one will be screened by Arthaland to preserve the character of the development. After all, if it’s going to be a small, tightly knit vertical version of Forbes Park or Dasmariñas Village, one can’t have undesirable or notorious neighbors, right?
In any case, Biz Buzz learned that, apart from the penthouse unit, the exclusive condo will have another similarly sized offering called a “garden unit” which will go for as high as P268 million. The rest will be 293- or 287-sq m units—only two to a floor—that will fetch prices as high as P140 million to as “affordable” as P92 million.
Just remember: Having the money isn’t the only criterion for getting into the project. You have to be the kind of person that adds value to the small elite community of residents. In other words, they have to like you, too.
—Daxim L. Lucas
Ready for takeoff
Tycoons Edgar “Injap” Sia II and Tony Tan Caktiong have completed their acquisition of Tri-State Securities Inc. through their fintech arm, BeeDragon Global Corp. As of press time, they were just waiting for regulatory approval to rename the brokerage house DragonFi Securities Inc.
Both Sia and Tan Caktiong were born in the Lunar Year of Dragon, which is why their businesses have “dragon” in their corporate name.
Sia told Biz Buzz that their team was now doing the transition and working on the new platform software following the closing of the share purchase agreement with the old owners of Triton.
Since February, their partners, Jon Carlo Lim and Cathryn Lao, have moved to the office in Philippine Stock Exchange Tower BGC to prepare for the launch of the newest trading participant in the local bourse.
Sia’s Injap Investments Inc. and Tan Caktiong’s HoneyStar Holdings Corp. each own one-third of parent fintech firm BeeDragon, while Lim, Lao and one Don Alexander own shares equivalent to 14.33 percent, 14 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
BeeDragon—which will be Sia and Tan Caktiong’s vehicle for fintech businesses—will be managed by Lim as president and chief executive officer and Lao as director and chief technology officer (CTO).
Lim received his MBA with concentration in Finance and Accounting from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He has over 20 years of financial markets experience.
Lao, on the other hand, received her Master of Engineering in Computer Science from Cornell University. She had worked in equities technology in New York for both Bank of America and Citigroup N.A.
BeeDragon aims to provide Filipinos with “transformational investment platforms” that will provide fast, reliable and secure trade executions to the Philippine equity market. It also intends to provide exclusive digital financial tools and content that are “timely, enriching and easily digestible.”
