GGRAsia – Landing Intl rights issue to help fund Jeju casino scheme

Landing Intl rights issue to help fund Jeju casino scheme

Apr 23, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

Mainland China real estate developer Landing International Development Ltd on Thursday said it was seeking to raise approximately HKD6.54 billion (US$843.9 million) before expenses via a rights issue on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

It said much of the money will go towards an investment the group has made in a casino resort scheme on Jeju Island in South Korea.

According to Thursday’s filing, Landing Jeju Development Co Ltd, a 50 percent owned subsidiary of the group, has obtained the building permits from the Jeju government for what are referred to as “zones A and R” of the resort site.

Landing International is linking with Singapore casino operator Genting Singapore Plc to build the US$1.8-billion casino resort. The project broke ground on February 12 and is to be known as Resorts World Jeju (pictured in a rendering). As the law in South Korea currently stands, the casino component of the resort will be open to foreigners-only

The property, to be modelled after Genting Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa venue in the city-state, will open in stages from 2017 and is due to be completed by 2019.

According to Thursday’s filing, the Jeju project will have a total gross floor area of approximately 306,763 square metres (3.3 million sq feet) with premium hotels, a “villa hotel” and conference and exhibition facilities, a theme park, a proposed gaming facility, shopping and other entertainment and tourism facilities. There will also be a residential component with a gross floor area of 132,265 square metres and made up of condominiums, villas, bungalows and “other accommodation facilities”.

Landing International said on Thursday that the earthwork of the integrated resort has been started and the construction works for the accommodation facilities and the hotels and theme park are “expected to commence in mid-2015 and early 2016 respectively”.

The parent added in the latest filing: “As Landing Jeju is a new start-up and lacks fund raising ability, it is expected that such further capital requirements for the Jeju project will have to be equally shared and supported by further capital injections and/or shareholders loans from the company and the Genting Singapore Group.”

Landing International further stated: “Based upon the cash flow projection prepared by the company for the Jeju project for the period up to 30 June 2017, the group itself will have to raise and get ready approximately HKD4,836 million”.

It added that was net of the group’s share of bank and cash balances of approximately HKD588 million held by Landing Jeju.

The rights issue proposed by Landing International is conditional upon a planned increase in the authorised share capital of the parent from HKD500 million to HKD10 billion via the creation of 95 million new consolidated shares of HKD0.10 each.

After the share consolidation becomes effective – which is currently scheduled for June 3 – Landing International says it intends to issue 10 rights shares for every one consolidated share at the subscription price of HKD0.35 per rights share.

Trading in in fully paid rights shares is expected to start at the beginning of Hong Kong trading on July 8.

On March 27, Landing International confirmed that negotiations for the company to acquire the foreigners-only Alpensia casino at Holiday Inn Resort in Pyeongchang, South Korea, had ended without a deal.