Suntrust Home Developers Inc., a company that is 51-percent owned by Asia’s largest junket operator Suncity Group Holdings Limited., plans to raise at least $300 million until the end of July to build a hotel casino project in the country.
Suntrust said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it signed a third supplemental agreement extending the period to raise the funds needed to develop the hotel and casino within the 31-hectare integrated resort and gaming complex Westside City.
The supplemental agreement also extended the closing of the subscription agreement between Fortune Noble Ltd., a wholly owned company of Suncity and Suntrust.
Under the shares subscription deal, Fortune agreed to subscribe to 2.55 billion Suntrust shares, which were issued out of the increase of Suntrust’s authorized capital stock to P23 billion from P3 billion.
Suncity signed a deal last year with Westside City Resorts World Inc. and Travellers International Hotel Group Inc., two companies led by businessman Andrew Tan that are in charge of developing Westside City.
Under the deal, Suncity, through Suntrust, will lease a portion of Westside City for the development and operation of a main hotel and casino.
The lease for the project site covers a period of 20 years at an annual rental of $10.6 million starting from the date of handover to SunTrust. It is automatically renewable for a further term of 25 years.
The planned hotel and casino project is scheduled for completion by the fourth quarter of 2022.
Westside City will be the fourth resort and casino development to rise in Entertainment City.
The first three are Solaire Resorts & Casino of Bloomberry Resorts Corp. which opened in March 2013, City of Dreams Manila of Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts Corp. which opened in December 2014 and Manila Bay Resorts of Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada which opened in 2016.
The share price of Suntrust rose 2.6 percent Monday to close at P1.18.