Japanese billionaire and gaming tycoon Kazuo Okada is closing in on a deal with a pair of local investors in the Philippines that would clear the way for his company, Universal Entertainment, to build, develop, and run its integrated resort and casino in the country.
Back in November, Universal signed a memorandum of agreement with Century Properties Group (CPG) to receive significant shares of the 44-hectare Manila Bay Resorts property, owned by Eagle Landholdings Inc., a Philippine company tied up to Universal Entertainment. On this site will rise one of four integrated resort casinos that will make up the Entertainment City project in the Philippine capital.
The agreement called for Century, together with another locally-owned company, First Paramount Holdings, to own a combined 60 percent stake of Eagle Landholdings, with CPG getting 36 percent of that share and First Paramount receiving 24 percent.
Less than two months after that MOA was signed, the transaction between all parties concerned is expected to wrap up anytime soon, according to First Paramount chief Alice Eduardo. With the deal all but signed, sealed, and delivered, Okada’s grandiose yet controversial casino project in the Philippines is one step closer to coming to fruition.
Finding local partners is especially crucial for the Japanese tycoon because Philippine law requires foreign ownership of any company to be limited to just 40 percent with the larger share to be made up of local investors. Incidentally, Eduardo’s involvement with Okada’s casino project is more than just the 24 percent share the former’s company will have in Manila Bay Resorts. The Sta. Elena Construction & Development Corp., a company where she is also the president of, will be in charge of doing the brunt of structure and civil works for the integrated resort and casino.
Asked by local reporters why her company decided to do business with Okada, Eduardo was straight-forward in her response, expressing faith in her new business partner’s business model and believing that its a project that will benefit all parties concerned, both in the short and long term.
More importantly, the finalization of this deal will be a huge load off of the shoulders of Universal, which has spent far too long a time looking for a local partner to build the multi-billion dollar project.
