Silver Heritage Group Ltd announced Monday that they had secured another $5 million for Nepal subsidiary, Tiger One Pvt Ltd, bringing the company’s Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa another step closer to opening after multiple construction delays. In a Monday filing with the Australian Securities Exchange, the company said the new finance facilities would “prepay US$2.0-million of the US$20-million outstanding bonds, issued to Silver Heritage Ltd on 26 August 2016, on or around 25 August 2017”.
This is the second time this calendar year that the company has had to commit additional funds to the project in the Bhairahawa area of Nepal. The new casino resort is situated about 12 kilometers (~7.5 miles) from the Nepal/India border and is expected to draw gambling traffic from several cities in Uttar Pradesh which have no casinos of their own. While the Hong Kong-based, Australia-listed Silver Heritage has casino operations experience in Vietnam with their Phoenix International Club near Hanoi, one of only 7 true casinos licensed in the country, and at The Millionaire’s Club in Kathmandu’s Shangri La Hotel & Resort – this is their first luxury casino resort in southern Nepal. It is expected to tap one of the world’s largest unserved gaming markets.
Silver Heritage Group announced in July 2016 that it planned to list on the Australian Securities Exchange. The resort was expected to open in late February 2017. In February the company requested and received a temporary and immediate suspension of its stocks trading on the ASE after it announced that the resort’s opening would be postponed due to “temporary unexpected delays” including “a shortage of liquidity in the Nepal banking system”. In late July the company said they expected to open in two phases by the end of the year with the hotel, villas and hospitality areas opening by the end of September and the casino and other areas of the resort launching in November.
The 20,000 square foot casino, 100 room 5-star hotel, and 2 villas are expected to cost the company a total of US$51.8 million to complete, up some US$11.8m from the initial projection of US$40m, according to a report on India gaming law portal glaws.com. Silver Heritage announced earlier this month that the company’s co-founder and president of business development would be stepping down in early September. While serving as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of Silver Heritage, Tim Shepherd managed the strategy, sales and daily operations of the group.
