A Taiwan-based shipping firm is set to test the waters of the Russian casino industry after acquiring nearly 189 million ordinary shares of Hong Kong-listed Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd.

In a filing before the Taiwan Stock Exchange, shipping operator First Steamship Co. Ltd. announced that it bought equity interest of Hong Kong-listed Kaisheng Holdings Limited, priced at HKD1.05 (US$0.13) per share.

GGRAsia reported that the ordinary shares that Kaisheng sold to First Steamship represents a shareholding of 12.67 percent in Summit Ascent, the company that runs the Tigre de Cristal casino resort in Russia’s Far East.

It isn’t clear whether the Summit Ascent shares that First Steamship purchased are the same shares that casino mogul Lawrence Ho has recently divested. It would be recalled that Ho sold 20 million shares in Summit Ascent, as he looks for other opportunities elsewhere.