There’s been no idle time in the offices of Travellers International Hotel Group these days. A few weeks after the company announced that it would delaying its $1-billion initial public offering despite getting approval from the Philippine Stock Exchange to pursue the application, the company announced that it will be shelling out $600 million as part of expansion plans in its casino and hotel business in the Philippines.
According to Travellers, the decision to delay the IPO did not play any part in its three-year expansion plans. Company president Kingson Sian shot down speculation that such was the case, saying that the company doesn’t feel the pressure of rushing the IPO application especially with volatile conditions in the global market these days. Travellers will green light its IPO plans when its good and ready; it even has a cadre of financial institutions already in the books to help it arrange it IPO offering, which it hopes will contribute significantly to the development of its Resorts World Bayshore integrated resort and casino at Entertainment City.
For now, the company is focusing on its expansion plans and is even prepared to tap into the debt market to secure finances for this multi-year project and development. Even with the IPO delay, the company still believes that it can complete the planned expansion project, which would include the building of a convention center and the addition of 1,100 hotel rooms and gaming facilities, in three year’s time.
The goal of this expansion, Sian explains, is to “double what we have currently in Resorts World Manila”. It looks like a sound plan and its reassuring, at least if you’re a shareholder, to know that Travellers isn’t cash-strapped that the decided delay in the IPO application would’ve crippled its operations. It’s understandable for the company to keep the pistol in the holster given the unpredictability of the global economic market, waiting for it to stabilize so that when the time comes that it begins to offer its IPO, it won’t come with kind of unforeseen surprises.
