Lawrence Ho gets share options in Spain casino bid investor

Aug 12, 2014 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck, World  

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Macau casino investor Lawrence Ho Yau Lung (pictured) and seven directors of MelcoLot Ltd have been awarded share options in the firm at an exercise price aggregating to approximately HKD82.23 million (US$10.6 million), according to a filing on Monday.

The announcement comes three days after MelcoLot confirmed in a filing to the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that a wholly owned subsidiary had become a shareholder in a firm bidding for a casino licence at BCN World in Barcelona, Spain.

BCN World is a large-scale entertainment complex planned for the Catalan capital.

Mr Ho, chairman of Melco International Development Ltd, and co-chairman of Macau casino developer and operator Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd, is described in the latest MelcoLot filing as an existing “substantial shareholder”.

He got options on 4,384,000 MelcoLot shares at the exercise price of HKD1.14 per share, which was also the closing price of the shares on Monday. Seven directors are to share options on a further 67,744,000 pieces of stock.

Options on an additional 9,580,000 shares have been granted to “certain employees and consultants of the company”, says the filing.

The entity in which MelcoLot has invested in order to gain exposure to a Spain gaming project – BCN Integrated Resorts 2 SA, a 50-50 joint venture with Veremonte España SL – has passed to the second phase of the tender process for a Barcelona casino licence, MelcoLot said in its Friday filing.

MelcoLot shares closed at HKD1.12 in Tuesday trading, down 1.75 percent on the day.

Previously MelcoLot has focused on supplying technology to lottery operators in mainland China.

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