GGRAsia – Silver Heritage confirms US$9.3mln from share offers

Silver Heritage confirms US$9.3mln from share offers

Sep 10, 2018 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

Asian casino operator Silver Heritage Group Ltd says it has been pledged AUD13.1 million (US$9.3 million) in capital support from existing and new investors via respective institutional and retail share offerings.

The retail offer only closes on September 24, but is already fully subscribed, said the firm.

The aggregate amount from the institutional and retail exercises is at the upper end of an estimate mentioned on Thursday to the Australian Securities Exchange.

On Monday the group told the bourse its stock has been returned to market quotation after being suspended last Thursday pending the financing announcement.

The institutional component raised AUD7.5 million from a share offering to a combination of existing and new institutional investors, the firm said in one of several Monday filings.

The firm stated in that document there had been “close to full participation by eligible institutional shareholders for their entitlement in the institutional entitlement offer with a take-up rate of 94 percent.”

They said that the other part of the institutional offer – referred to as an institutional placement – had been “strongly supported by both existing shareholders and new investors”.

The regulatory announcement added that the retail component was “fully underwritten and will raise approximately AUD5.6 million through a one for one pro-rata non-renounceable entitlement offer at AUD0.02 per new share”; the same price as the institutional offer.

The retail entitlement offer would open on September 13, 2018 and was due to close on September 24, said the same filing.

Silver Heritage’s managing director and chief executive Mike Bolsover said in a prepared statement in that Monday filing: “We are very pleased and appreciative of the strong support shown by our existing shareholders and are pleased to welcome a number of new investors to our register.”

“The success of the institutional offer is an important first step in improving the company’s financial position and providing a much improved balance sheet as a platform for the continued ramp-up at Tiger Palace,” he added.

That was a reference to Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa, in Nepal, the group’s first purpose-built gaming resort, and which is targeted at customers from neighbouring India.

Tiger Palace, which had a revised capital budget of AUD70.3 million, started gaming operations in December.

Silver Heritage said in a Thursday filing it was also paying back up to US$6.8 million of its US$18-million worth of outstanding bonds and extending the maturity date of the outstanding bonds by an additional 19 months, to April 2, 2021. Mr Bolsover told GGRAsia that was aimed at “deleveraging” the group’s business and giving it the capital resources to expand.