GGRAsia – Summit Ascent unit to sell off Tigre de Cristal licensee

Summit Ascent unit to sell off Tigre de Cristal licensee

Jan 11, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

Oriental Regent Ltd is to sell 100 percent of the shares in its wholly-owned G1 Entertainment LLC to a Russian firm for a consideration of US$116 million, to be paid in Chinese yuan. Oriental Regent is an entity through which Hong Kong-listed Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd runs gaming and hotel operations at the Tigre de Cristal casino resort near Vladivostok in Russia.

G1 Entertainment holds a gaming licence for Tigre de Cristal (pictured), granted by the Russian government.

The information about the sell-off exercise in the G1 Entertainment entity came from Taiwan firm Firich Enterprises Co Ltd, which via its unit Firich Investment Ltd, has a 20 percent stake in Oriental Regent.

The buyer of G1 Entertainment is Russian entity Dalnevostochniy Aktiv LLC, according to a Wednesday filing by Firich to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Summit Ascent owns 77.5 percent of Oriental Regent, according to its latest interim report. Trading in Summit Ascent’s shares in Hong Kong was halted on Thursday morning.

Trading on the Hong Kong bourse in the shares of LET Group Ltd , the parent of Summit Ascent, was also halted on Thursday, “pending the release of an inside information announcement,” stated the company.

Firich said in its filing that its own proceeds from the sale exercise – via its stake in Oriental Regent – would be US$28 million in cash, at which point Firich would “reduce its exposure in Russia to zero”.

Firch said that in terms of a 2023 balance sheet, the transaction would have a “negative impact” of just under US$18.4 million.

The parent stated: “Since the loss consists of US$14,606,000 due to foreign-operation exchange differences reclassification”, shareholder equity would face a “negative impact of US$3,784,000”.

In an August filing to the Hong Kong bourse, Summit Ascent said it had swung to a loss of HKD16.1-million (US$2.1-million) in the first half to June 30, compared to a HKD85.2-million profit in the prior-year period.