After nearly four years of investigation, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has released its long-awaited “suitability” findings on MGM Mirage joint-venture partner Pansy Ho. As MGM itself reported to the SEC yesterday, “While the report itself is confidential, at the conclusion of the report, the DGE recommended, among other things, that: (i) the Company’s Macau joint venture partner be found to be unsuitable; (ii) the Company be directed to disengage itself from any business association with its Macau joint venture partner; (iii) the Company’s due diligence/compliance efforts be found to be deficient; and (iv) the New Jersey Commission hold a hearing to address the report.”
The grinning ghost of MGM Grand Macau
While the reason for the DGE’s disapproval isn’t given, it’s also not difficult to guess. When someone with the sleazy reputation of Stanley Ho has an interest in your casino — by dint of loans to two of his daughters — a jurisdiction that takes probity as seriously as New Jersey is unlikely to give its benediction.
Slightly further down in its SEC bulletin, MGM offers one of the most Pollyanna-ish statements of recent memory: “The Company does not believe that the report will have a material adverse effect on it.”
Let’s back up a second. The matter of Ms. Ho now goes to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for adjudication. The NJCCC is not obligated to act on the DGE’s findings. However, the last time it exercised such discretion, it was to override the DGE’s recommended probation for Columbia Sussex in favor of kicking ColSux out of the Garden State forthwith.
So the likelihood is that MGM will be faced with a choice between liquidating its New Jersey holdings or its Macao ones. The latter include a 50% stake in Borgata (and Boyd Gaming can afford to buy its partner out), plus some undeveloped land, which will be a much tougher sell.
As for MGM Grand Macau, it would revert to the Ho family. MGM could still, in all probability, count on an ongoing stream of revenue by leasing out the brand name or even by negotiating a management contract for itself (although management is rumored to have been the casino’s Achilles heel).
Unless the NJCCC grants clemency (in which case, MGM loses face but nothing more, as one analyst puts it), “material adverse effect” is inevitable. But there may be a silver lining for CEO Jim Murren. He was able to get debt-covenant violations waived in return for an accelerated repayment of the company’s whopping debt load. The diñero from a Borgata or MGM Grand Macau sale would come in mighty handy as the company tries to de-leverage itself.
Walking (out) in Memphis. A 21-year veteran of the Harrah’s Entertainment hierarchy resigned last week, another casualty of the company’s downsizing.
And then there were 135. It used to be the execs jumping from the sinking Cosmopolitan ship reached for a lifeline from Fontainebleau. Now they’ll be looking for another rescue vessel. (Hey, the Tropicana may be hiring soon.) A F’bleau spokesman says negotiations with Deutsche Bank are continuing, in a notable ratcheting-down of the bellicose rhetoric that’s been lobbed to and from F’bleau of late.
Heard last night as part of an act at Sin City Comedy, re the Vegas Trop: “A $20 bill and all my teeth — I’m a whale!” Conclusion: Alex Yemenidjian cannot arrive soon enough.
