NagaCorp’s acquisition of NagaCity Walk delayed to 2017-end

By
macaubusinessdaily

Cambodian gaming operator NagaCorp Ltd said the targeted completion date for its acquisition of a company developing the shopping complex NagaCity Walk in the Southeast Asian country has been put off to the end of 2017, it told Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday.
In 2011, the gaming company entered a sale and purchase agreement with its own chief executive and controlling shareholder, Chen Lip Keong, who agreed to sell his entire issued capital shares of a company named TSC Inc. TSC controls City Walk Inc. – the developer of the NagaCity Walk, an integrated complex TSCLK Complex and a landscape park project Tourist Garden.
According to yesterday’s filing, the gaming company and the seller had agreed to extend the completion date of the shares sale deal to December 31 in 2017 rather than the original proposed date, June 13 in 2016.
NagaCorp said the delay in the completion of acquisition is due to three “stop work orders” by Cambodian authorities to “to compliance with local cultural and technical requirements.” But it added that the issue had already been “rectified and works re-commenced subsequently.”
On the other hand, the parties also reached an agreement of not to proceed with the development of the Tourist Garden, as the land plot proposed for the development had been allotted by the Royal Government of Cambodia to the Ministry of Environment of Cambodia and Electricité du Cambodge in 2013.
In a filing in 2011, NagaCorp claimed that the acquisition, at the consideration of US$368 million, is “to expand its existing business.” NagaCity Walk and TSCLK Complex are both located next to the company’s casino property, NagaWorld, in Phnom Penh of Cambodia.
The gaming operator also said yesterday that the seller is spending an extra US$29 million (MOP232 million) in the construction works of TSCLK Complex and NagaCity Walk “to meet with changes in compliance with local cultural and technical requirements and the extension of the length of NagaCity Walk.” It indicated that such additional cost will not be passed on to the company.