Philippine gambling company PhilWeb Corp. announced the sale of certain German assets to cover overheads while waiting to have its license for the operation of eGames facilities across the Philippines renewed. PhilWeb said in a Tuesday filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange that it has raised PHP140 million for the purpose.
The company disposed of a 32.5% stake in German hotel room digital entertainment business Acentic GmbH. Another Germany-based company bought PhilWeb’s assets. The Philippine gambling technology provider and operator said that it had received the amount of $750,000 for the sale as well as €1.97 million in loan receivables full settlement.
As mentioned above, PhilWeb intends to use the money from the sale to secure overheads while it anticipates an answer from PAGCOR, the Philippine national gambling regulator, in regard to whether it would have its license reissued.
Casino News Daily has reported in a number of stories from the second half of 2016 that PhilWeb was denied a license renewal in August, when its former license expired, thus facing closure of more than 280 eGame cafés across the Philippines. It could be said that the company became one of the biggest victims to President Rodrigo Duterte’s clampdown on the proliferation of online gambling in the country.
Assuming his post in mid-2016, President Duterte was firm on his decision to eradicate the spread of different social ills and iGaming was considered one such ill by him. At one point, the Philippines’ top official called PhilWeb’s former largest shareholder Roberto Ongpin an oligarch whose criminal activities should be stopped.
Shortly after, the businessman in question sold his entire stake in the company for around PHP2.5 billion in hopes that this would help PhilWeb have its license renewed.
Although PAGCOR told the eGames cafés service provider that it would not reissue its license last summer, it seems that it has changed its mind later on. It has recently become clear that PhilWeb may obtain a new license but it would have to go through a procurement process first.
PAGCOR has explained that the competitive bidding process was necessitated by the fact that PhilWeb was no longer the sole iGaming service provider as the situation had been a decade ago.
