Another day, another default. Tucked snugly at the bottom of Tropicana Entertainment‘s notice of default is another news nugget. Seems that the City of Evansville has informed the Columbia Sussex subsidiary that it’s defaulted on certain terms of its lease with Evansville (including minority-hiring obligations). That sale of Casino Aztar to the Caranos undoubtedly can’t close fast enough, bringing an end to 16 months (and counting) of recriminations along the Ohio River.
Spoke too soon? Did I say that the year-old Tropicana Casinos & Resort (TCR) Web site was finally finished? Wrong again. At least it’s easier on the eyes than the brutal-looking Columbia Sussex Web site, a relic of the Pleistocene Era of Web design.
About that Chapter 11 filing. During yesterday’s taping of the next “Vegas Gang” podcast, we were under the impression that the Tropicana default took the company by surprise. But lookee here. Could ColSux have been planning this move long in advance? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
If you’re a vendor and made delivery before Cinco de Mayo, take a number and go to the back of the line. (See FAQs #1 & 2; most of the others are just boilerplate happy talk.)
The Trop Has Two Daddies. If a company has two presidents, which one is really calling the shots? Just wondering.
“Why,” you might ask, “are certain casinos excluded from the Chapter 11 filing?” Good question. The Atlantic City Tropicana is under trusteeship of the State of New Jersey (and I’ll bet the New Jersey Casino Control Commission is real happy it didn’t return the property to Columbia Sussex, as requested by CEO William J. Yung III and trustee Gary Stein a few weeks ago).
The Westin Casuarina in Las Vegas and the Amelia Belle riverboat (above) are owned by Tropicana Entertainment CEO Yung’s TCR. Tropicana Entertainment is a discrete subsidiary of TCR, separated by a pair of holding companies. (And, just to make matters even more opaque, the Amelia Belle is scheduled to be swapped out with the Belle of Baton Rouge, which is part of the Chapter 11 proceeding; I wonder how their respective parishes will sort that one out?)
As for Greenville, Miss.’s Lighthouse Point Casino, it’s severally owned. One percent is held by Yung personally, 79% by Tropicana Entertainment and one of its subsidiaries, and 20% by unrelated third party Rainbow Entertainment.
I apologize for not being able to share the Columbia Sussex corporate chart with you. Our PDF-making capacity is offline for the day, but I hope to have it for you soon.
