Tiger Resort prepares follow-on offering

MANILA, Philippines — Tiger Resort Asia Ltd. (TRAL) is preparing to do a follow-on offering after its backdoor listing through Asiabest Group International Inc., sources told The STAR.

The timing will depend on market conditions, but the company is hoping to embark on this fund raising within the year, sources also said.

At the same time, the sources recognized that the market has significantly weakened again compared to its staunch recovery in the early part of the year.

“The plan is to do a follow-on offering after the backdoor listing,” sources noted.

The follow-on offering is meant to raise funds for the sprawling $2 billion Okada Manila integrated resort in Parañaque.

Last month, Asiabest Group appointed a new board of directors as well as new officers following the take over by TRAL of the listed company.

Asiabest Group announced the appointment of Manuel Lazaro as chairman of the board, Kenji Sugiyama as director and president; Masamitsu Fujime as treasurer; Takako Okada as director; Toki Takeuchi as director; and Takashi Oya as director.

Also appointed are Wilfrido Sanchez and Alfredo Pascual as independent directors and Christine Base as corporate secretary, corporate information officer and compliance officer.

Kenji is the president of TRAL subsidiary Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI).

Masamitsu is the vice president for accounting of TRLEI, while Takako is a board member and chief relations officer, also at TRLEI.

Toki is a corporate auditor and executive member of Universal Entertainment Corp. and a board member of TRLEI. Takashi is also a board member of TRLEI.

The appointment of the new board comes after Hong Kong-based TRAL completed the acquisition of the majority of shares of Asiabest Group.

TRAL completed the acquisition of 66.6 percent of the listed shares of Asiabest Group. Thus, TRAL now owns 200 million shares of the company.

As TRLEI prepares for the public listing, it is now considering a change in its brand name “Okada Manila” to distance itself from its erstwhile chairman Kazuo Okada, who was ousted from TRLEI and the UEC Group in the middle of 2017.

Okada is currently embroiled in various cases in the Philippines and abroad for anomalies and irregularities that happened when he was still the chairman of UEC and TRLEI.

Against this backdrop, Universal Entertainment Corp., the parent firm of TRAL reported that Okada Manila’s January gaming revenues were significantly up.

The casino’s gross gaming revenue rose to P3.84 billion in January, up nearly 134 percent compared to nearly P1.65 billion a year earlier.

“The increase in gross gaming revenue was primarily due to higher win rates in VIP and mass table games; volumes in VIP rolling, mass table drop and gaming machine handle remained strong as well,” Universal Entertainment disclosed.

VIP table games revenues grew to P2.285 billion during the month from only P670 million a year ago or almost four times, it also said.