Silver Heritage delays new Nepal casino’s soft opening

Australia-listed casino operator Silver Heritage Group says it is delaying the opening of its new casino in Nepal due to difficulty raising the financing needed for the venue’s completion.

Last October, Silver Heritage announced that its in-development Tiger Palace Resort in Bhairahawa on Nepal’s southern border with India would have its soft opening in February 2017. On Wednesday, Silver Heritage filed a notice with the Australian Stock Exchange indicating that the project was “encountering temporary unexpected delays.”

The company said the delays were principally due to “a shortage of liquidity in Nepal Banking System” and unanticipated delays in getting approval to increase the equity ceiling of its Nepal corporate investment vehicle “to allow remittance of capital into Nepal” to fund the new resort’s construction costs.

Silver Heritage said the lack of funds has resulted in “a slowdown in on-site activity” but said work on the project was ongoing. The company offered no revised timeline for the resort’s soft opening, only that it was assessing the impact of the delays on the final project costs, a task it expects to take several weeks. The company promised to update the market about any new developments as soon as practicable.