Casino operator Genting Singapore Plc plans to change its domicile from the Isle of Man, a jurisdiction regarded by financial institutions as an offshore tax haven, to Singapore, where it conducts its primary business. The firm, operator of the Resorts World Sentosa casino resort (pictured) in Singapore, said in a Friday filing to the Singapore Exchange, that a new Singapore law that came into effect on October 11, allowed “foreign corporate entities which meet the relevant criteria to transfer their domicile to Singapore without having to incorporate a new entity while at the same time retaining their corporate identity and history”.
Shareholders will be asked to approve the change at an extraordinary general meeting on April 17. If assent is given, new certificates for stockholders would be ready for delivery “within 60 days,” said the announcement. The document also clarified that Lim Kok Thay, executive chairman of Genting Singapore – and a member of the family that founded the parent business, Malaysia’s Genting Bhd – individually had a “deemed interest” in Genting Singapore amounting to nearly 52.8 percent of its shares. Friday’s filing made no specific mention of Genting Singapore’s tax status, but said the move from the Isle of Man would “increase administrative and operational efficiency [and] reduce administrative and compliance costs”. Under the change, the entity would also be renamed from a “Plc” – public limited company – to “Genting Singapore Ltd”.
Singapore in 2007 issued a casino licence respectively to Las Vegas Sands Corp and to Genting Singapore Plc to operate one gaming resort each in the city-state, namely Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa. The exclusivity period for those licences expired in 2017. Genting Singapore was first incorporated in 1984 in the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea halfway between the U.K mainland and the island of Ireland.
