Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s iron fist has sent a group of potential investors carrying a US$1.4-billion casino investment scurrying away from this Southeast Asian nation.

The potential investors were supposed to fund the Mactan Leisure City casino in the Cebu City, which would be spearheaded by Calata Corp., a Philippine-listed agricultural products firm.

But in a letter to the stock exchange on Wednesday, management consultancy RiskWise Global Capital Group, LLC said that the talks between its client Calata along with Sino-America Gaming Investment Group, LLC and Macau Resources Group Limited (MRG) and another group of foreign investors broke down.

The management consultancy pointed out that the prospective funders who backed out from the multi-billion casino project in Cebu were wary about perceived political risks and other issues.