Sinophil planning to sell shares

MANILA, Philippines - Sinophil Corp., the holding firm for the gaming assets of the SM conglomerate, is looking to sell shares to the public to improve its liquidity.

The secondary offering will involve majority stockholder Belle Corp. selling as much as 20 percent of Sinophil’s outstanding shares this year, an executive said late last week.

“In order for the issuer to be more acceptable to the market, we need to improve liquidity,” Sinophil chairman Willy Ocier told reporters after the company’s annual stockholders.

“Going forward, Sinophil, because it does not have capital requirements, will not be issuing new shares to raise money,” Ocier said.

Late last week, stockholders approved the plan of parent firm Belle to inject into Sinophil the 100-percent ownership of Premium Leisure Amusements Inc. (PLAI) and its 34.5-percent stake in Pacific Online Systems Corp. worth P1.525 billion.

PLAI is part of the consortium that holds the license for the $1.3-billion City of Dreams Manila that will be operated by Macau-based casino giant Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. For its part, Pacific Online is the online lottery system provider of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office in the Visayas and Mindanao.

In turn, non-gaming assets of Sinophil, which include the Tagaytay Midlands Golf Club Inc., a lot located within the Aseana Business Park at the Manila Bay Reclamation Area and several parcels of land within the Tagaytay Midlands complex, were transferred to upscale leisure developer Belle.

To date, Belle owns around 90 percent of Sinophil, which is expected to attract investors due to its exposure in the gaming sector.

“What will happen is because Sinophil will not have any major capital requirements. It may even have a dividend policy wherein Sinophil will declare dividends to parent company Belle,” Ocier said.

In March last year, Melco started paying lease rental for the integrated casino project constructed by Belle, which is majority owned by the SM conglomerate.

The integrated casino project is the SM Group’s first venture in the casino sector. It is also Melco Crown’s first gaming fora outside Macau where it operates the City of Dreams and Altira Macau casinos.