Croatian leisure play Cubus Lux is close to initial funding for its Olive Island resort project, says chairman Gerhard Huber.

Austrian businessman Dr Huber, with13.3 per cent of the London-headquartered company, says talks with two banks about the €75million (£59 million) first-stage funding for Olive Island are ‘near completion’.

Originally floated as a casino operator on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast, Cubus has already spent €18 million on the project, whose total eventual cost he puts at €120 million.

With 431 properties, a four-star hotel and two more yacht marinas to add to the present one, Huber argues the three-phase project will start to generate revenues in the financial year to next March, but will reveal its full potential in 2009-10.

He maintains this region, once a favoured tourist destination in the days of Yugoslavia, is set to regain its former popularity, with both Roman Abramovich’s yacht and his ex-wife’s already regularly berthing at Cubus marinas.

Cubus, which made £4.9 million pre-tax in the year to March, has put in tenders for two even larger projects, says Huber, one in Croatia and another in Montenegro. The casinos are also thriving, he contends.

Cubus shares rose from 85p to 205p between 2005 and early this year. Now 130p, valuing the company at £19 million, their appeal is speculative.

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