Casino operator Caesars Entertainment’s dream of entering the Asian market might not come to pass, according to the companay’s South Korean joint venture partner.
In 2013, Caesars and Indonesian property developer Lippo Group formed a joint venture to build a resort casino in Incheon and the government approved the project the following year. But on Monday, Lippo informed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that there was “no certainty as to whether the project will or will not proceed.”
Lippo says the LOCZ Korea Corp joint venture partners have yet to agree and finalize the $2b project’s investment scope. The partners also haven’t reached consensus on the terms of a deal to acquire the 89k-square-meter plot of land on which the resort is to be built. That’s a problem, because the conditional land deal the parties signed at the end of 2014 expires at the end of 2015.
Lippo says LOCZ Korea Corp is in discussions with MIDAN City Development Co Ltd,, which controls the Incheon property, to resolve the outstanding deal issues and also to discuss a possible extension of the deadline. But MIDAN is majority controlled by Lippo, which suggests that it isn’t Lippo that’s holding up this show.