Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) LLC is to close on a temporary basis with effect from “12am” local time on Tuesday its gaming operation on the Pacific island, a United States jurisdiction.
So reported the Saipan Tribune newspaper on Monday, adding the firm had said the move was to “support the public effort in the control of the coronavirus”.
The news outlet and a competing one, Marianas Variety, had respectively reported on Monday that three people had tested positive for Covid-19 in the neighbouring U.S. Pacific island jurisdiction of Guam.
The company is a unit of Hong Kong-listed Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd, which has been developing the Imperial Palace casino resort (pictured in a file photo) at Garapan, Saipan, the largest island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The parent announced on March 11 that it expected to “record an increase in net loss for the year ended 31 December 2019,” compared to the prior year, due to factors including lower revenue and impairment of trade receivables. In a separate filing on March 13, the company said the expected net loss for full-year 2019 would be higher “by not less than 20 percent” compared to 2018.
The casino investor reported a net loss of almost HKD2.97 billion (US$382.3 million) for full calendar year 2018, compared to a profit of about HKD637.5 million in 2017.
