SBMA plans casino at yacht club

The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) is planning to put up a casino at the Subic Bay Yacht Club to help improve the financial condition of the yacht club formerly owned by Victor ‘Vic-Vic’ Villavicencio, SBMA chairman Felicito Payumo said yesterday.

The proposed casino would be run by the Philippine Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).

The decision to put up a casino was arrived at by the major creditors of Villavicencio who had pledged his shares in the Subic Bay Waterfront Development Corp. (SBWDC) as collateral for an almost P1-billion loan borrowed from various financial institutions to shore up his financially troubled restaurant chain Triple-V.

The major creditors of Villavicencio are the Land Bank of the Philippines, the Philippine National Bank and the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co.

Landbank reportedly has 705 shares of SBWDC while PNB has more than a hundred shares. The price per share is currently at P1.7 million for individual members and P2.3 million for corporate members.

Thus, Landbank’s 705 shares are worth P1.616 billion, while PNB’s shares are worth around P230 million.

While the creditor banks of Villavicencio have taken financial control of the yacht club, Payumo said, the management of the club has been retained.

The yacht club’s main source of revenue is the sale of its shares, but has a lot of potential income from future development.

"The yacht club has been able to break even only. It has not been profitable because it does not have enough revenue earning facilities," Payumo said.