In my usual cart-first, horse-later fashion, I elicited a legal opinion regarding the scenario I postulated the other night: MGM Mirage spinning off either its Atlantic City holdings or MGM Grand Macau into a quasi-autonomous entity, much as Sheldon Adelson proposes to do with his Macao properties.
Well, unless Pansy Ho can sit down with the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and charm them into turning a blind eye to the penumbra of unsavoriness that surrounds her father, Stanley Ho, MGM is up against a wall. It could put MGM Grand Macau into a limited partnership in which it would have equity but no power.
Did MGM spend so much time and money getting into Macao just so it could be a passive investor? Probably not. So either MGM has to scrape together the cash to buy out the Ho family or Pansy and her sister can exercise their right of first refusal on the property.
Likewise, Boyd Gaming holds the prerogative of acquiring MGM's Borgata share, but of all the possible scenarios on deck, that appears the most unlikely. Here's why:
Borgata represents no ongoing cost to MGM. It can sit back and collect 50% of the profits in perpetuity, while Boyd does the heavy lifting. In Macao, not only does MGM have to run the place, it's in a market with narrower profit margins, thanks to a confiscatory tax rate and the commissions charged by junket operators — to say nothing of the draconian meddling of the Chinese government. And if it's relying solely on mass-market play, it's not enough to get MGM out of single-digit market share.
MGM took too long and spent too much getting into Macao to be happy with being stuck in sixth place among operators. If it's going to have to amputate a limb, losing Macao may be the less painful cut.
It could also be the more lucrative one because, even in a down market, Macao has two very price-boosting qualities: a finite number of casino concessions and a comparable limitation on casino-zoned land. Neither freeze is likely to thaw anytime soon.
Macao is still a seller's market. But if Boyd were to decline its option on MGM's half of Borgata, other suitors are going to be very hard to find. Nobody wants in on Revel or Bader Field and the Tropicana is essentially being given away. The accomplished Ms. Ho could still pull MGM's chestnuts out of the fire but if she can't, her family could wind up with 2.5 of the six casino concessions in Macao.*
* — slightly more, actually, as James Packer's stake in Melco Crown Entertainment is exceeded by that of Lawrence Ho.
