The operator of Macau Fisherman’s Wharf, Macau Legend, has announced its intention to sell its entire interest in its Laos gaming operation – Savan Legend Resorts Hotel and Entertainment Complex – for some $45 million.
In a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing late-Tuesday, Macau Legend indicated that the purchaser is Shundo Yoshinari, a Japanese citizen residing in Japan who is currently unlinked to Macau Legend.
The conditions of the deal include that Savan Legend enter a ‘flat tax agreement with the government of Lao PDR’, that the terms of the initial gambling license ‘shall be 99 years’ and that the operating license is transferred before the completion of the disposal, as well as other regulatory requirements.
Macau Legend that, while its gaming and hotel business in Lao ‘was profit-making for the financial year of 2022, its financial performance is unstable and such business is subject to increasingly onerous restraints in Lao PDR, thereby limiting its profitability in the future’.
The Savan Vegas property has not been immune to controversy. Macau Legend took over the property in 2016, for a consideration of $42 million, paid out to the Laos government, who had seized the property from its previous operator Sanum Investments in 2012 – alleging tens of millions in unpaid taxes and penalties.
Macau Legend notes that it aims to use the proceeds from the disposal to ‘reallocate more financial resources to its business operation in Macau and for overall future development’.
Macau Legend currently only operates the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf complex, including a satellite casino it manages under SJM’s gaming concession, as well as Savan Vegas. It is attempting to build a hotel and casino in Cape Verde but has encountered numerous issues.
