Genting HK "still wants 10% of Echo" The Hong Kong arm of Genting, the south-east Asian gaming group, is still seeking regulatory approval to buy more than 10 per cent of Echo Entertainment, the Australian casino operator being stalked by billionaire James Packer. Genting Hong Kong said in a statement on Thursday that it would continue to hold its 5.1 per cent stake in Echo and was "committed" to obtaining approval from regulators to take its shareholding beyond 10 per cent. But the company said it did not buy the 4.8 per cent stake in Echo that was put up for sale on Wednesday night by its sister company in Singapore. The stock was sold to institutional investors through Citigroup at A$3.99 a piece, according to local media reports. Shares in Echo fell 6 per cent to A$3.85 on Thursday. Echo, owner of Sydney's sole casino licence, has been the subject of a stake-building tussle between Genting and Mr Packer's gaming company Crown. The Genting subsidiaries each acquired about 5 per cent of Echo in June, sparking talk of a bidding war for the operator of the Star casino in Sydney and three other venues in Queensland. Mr Packer wants Echo to split its Sydney licence so that he can develop a huge gaming complex and six-star hotel on the city's harbour and tap into the top end of the Asian gambling market. To that end he has amassed a 10 per cent stake and is seeking regulatory approval to lift that holding to 25 per cent. To help fund further purchases Mr Packer has struck a A$2bn deal to sell his controlling interest in Consolidated Media Holdings to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. If he does not get approval to raise his holding in Echo it is thought that Mr Packer will ask the NSW and Queensland governments to issue new casino licences for Sydney and Brisbane. Genting Singapore, which has a separate stock market listing in the city state, said the sale of its Echo stake followed a "decision" to rationalise its investment portfolio. The disposal was welcomed by analysts, who said that involvement in a potentially messy takeover battle in a mature market such as Australia would have been a needless distraction for Genting Singapore. "Selling out of Echo is positive news," said Lucius Chong, an analyst at CIMB Research. It removes the prospect of being distracted with the enlarged group's strategy when it should have been focusing on the issues of building its business back home.