GGRAsia – Investors nibble at Silver Heritage’s Nepal ops: firm

Investors nibble at Silver Heritage’s Nepal ops: firm

May 31, 2019 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

Australian-listed operator of Asian casinos Silver Heritage Group Ltd says its search for partners in its operations in Nepal, or outright buyers of its business there, has elicited some inquiries.

Silver Heritage told the Australian Securities Exchange on Thursday: “The company has received a number of approaches in relation to this process and will update the market further when and if appropriate.”

Silver Heritage announced its search for partners or buyers early in May.

The company runs Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa casino resort (pictured) on the Indo-Nepalese border and a casino in a hotel in Kathmandu.

The Kathmandu Post reported this week that at least four leading Nepali companies had approached Silver Heritage regarding its local operations. Among the companies identified by the media outlet were financial services firm Chaudhary Group, remittance company IME Group and conglomerate Vishal Group Ltd.

“The company’s operations in Nepal continue to perform well in 2019, with year-to-date results well ahead of the prior year’s performance,” Silver Heritage said in its announcement to the exchange.

Silver Heritage also told the exchange it had collected US$200,000 as part of the second instalment of the payment owed by a former partner in Vietnam, and was working on collecting the rest.

The company announced in March that its ex-partner was due to pay it US$5.25 million in compensation arising from the cessation on March 1 of casino operations at the Phoenix International Club near Hanoi after the partner failed to keep the operations licensed.

On doubts about the company being a going concern, Silver Heritage told the exchange: “The directors have reasonable expectations that they will be able to raise additional funding needed for the group to continue to pay its debts as and when they fall due, make principal repayments to its bondholder commencing in March 2020, and execute against its milestones in the medium term”.

Silver Heritage reported that its annual loss attributable to its owners shrank to just over US$11.13 million in 2018, or 22.9 percent less than the year before, on annual revenue that grew by 31.8 percent to nearly US$24.07 million.