Berjaya boss unhappy with government ‘backtracking’
Berjaya Corp head Tan Sri Vincent Tan expressed his frustrations for the first time at the government’s U-turn over the football betting licence he said had been awarded to his Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd.
Calling the government’s move “backtracking” in a Berjaya Corp statement, the tycoon explained in a separate statement for Ascot Sports that the government had missed a chance to regulate and control underground sports betting activities by reneging on its promise to issue the licence.
“As it stands currently, with no proper regulation, only the illegal bookies, loan sharks and underground syndicates will profit handsomely from these unlicensed activities whilst the government is losing billions of ringgit in tax revenue,” he said in the statement issued by Ascot Sports today.
He added that the social problems associated with gambling will worsen should the sports betting industry remain unlicensed and unregulated, and that the benefit of legalised sports betting would far outweigh the ills.
Berjaya Corp reported that the government had last month re-issued the licence to Tan-owned Ascot Sports after the original licence was cancelled by the previous Abdullah administration.
The gaming, property and hospitality group had told Bursa Malaysia in a May 12 filing that it intended to acquire Tan’s 70 per cent stake in Ascot for RM525 million. The tycoon’s son — Datuk Robin Tan Yeong Ching — would have retained control of his 30 per cent stake.
Tan had first obtained the licence in 1987 but had “asked the government to take it back” when the venture was unsuccessful while retaining the right to get the licence back.
His most recent attempt to revive long-suffering Ascot Sports — which posted a loss of RM4.6 million at the end of 2008 — ran into a concerted hail of criticism from opposition parties who managed to turn the issue into a national talking point on the back of apparent anti-gambling sentiment.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak eventually capitulated to public pressure last Friday when he announced the government’s decision to take back the approval for the football betting licence, forcing Berjaya to announce today that it had aborted its acquisition of Ascot Sports.
