With many ups and down in the casino industry worldwide each day comes with an element of surprise. Recently Philippines based casino operator Bloomberry Resorts has publicly refuted a junket operator’s claim that it has been given more time to close the purchase of Bloomberry’s South Korean casino business. Earlier Bloomberry Resorts on June 23, announced that it had reached a deal to sell its Jeju Sun Hotel & Casino to Macau junket investor Iao Kun Group Holding Company (IKGH). This deal between Bloomberry Resorts and Iao Kun Group Holding Company (IKGH) was supposedly expected to close within 45 days of the announcement.
However, last week IKGH director Jim Preissler during an analyst call to discuss IKGH’s grim Q2 results claimed that his company was having trouble arranging finances for the $102.6m deal, but also reassured the investors that Bloomberry had agreed to extend the 45-day deadline to allow IKGH some more time to raise the readies. Thus IKGH has time before they can offer shape to this deal and can move forward.
On Monday, Bloomberry filed a terse notice with the Philippines Stock Exchange titled “Clarification of News Reports”. This notice referenced Preissler’s comments, and then stated unequivocally that BloomBerry “has not agreed to the extension of the closing date for the said transaction with Iao Kun.”
However IKGH has yet to publicly respond to Bloomberry’s statement but this is the second time this month that IKGH’s public announcements has been refuted by other parties to the transactions.
Earlier this month as an ongoing strategic review of its business IKGH announced that it was closing two VIP gaming rooms at Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) casinos in Macau. GEG stated that “said IKGH hadn’t elected to close the rooms but had been given the boot by GEG for unspecified “breach of the agreements made with us.” GEG further added that that “it intended to vigorously pursue legal action against IKGH and its directors.”
IKGH has suffered far worse than public shaming in 2016. Macau’s much publicized gaming revenue slowdown has hit the company’s revenues as well hitting its VIP turnover streak to 23 straight months in August. IKGH’s Macau presence has since shrunk to just two VIP rooms from five.
In addition to all this IKGH is also facing the delisting of its shares from the NASDAQ exchange unless it can lift its sagging share price back up over the $1.00 minimum required by the exchange.
