{"id":10914,"date":"2013-05-30T09:22:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T17:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10914"},"modified":"2021-06-21T06:04:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T14:04:41","slug":"pinnacle-the-cost-of-the-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/pinnacle-the-cost-of-the-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinnacle: The cost of the deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> finds itself in an interesting pickle today: It’s \"\"awfully far into its Federal Trade Commission<\/strong>-blocked purchase of Ameristar Casinos<\/strong> to blow it up by, say, selling three or more Ameristar properties or otherwise triggering a fallout. And if it tries to fight the FTC, it could easily overrun the deadline for cutting the deal, incurring a breakup fee. So Pinnacle finds itself between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n

This morning, J.P. Morgan<\/strong>‘s Joseph Greff<\/strong> had some interesting thoughts on the PNK predicament, tacitly putting a “buy” recommendation on the stock. Federal intervention “will not prove to be a deal-breaker,” he predicts, adding that investors anticipated a casino divestiture in St. Louis<\/strong>. “[C]oncerns existed that this would be forced by the Missouri<\/strong> gaming regulators with three properties in that market … Of the two markets, clearly the Lake Charles<\/strong> news was the surprise given that it was a PNK-owned project years ago as the proposed Sugar Cane Bay<\/strong><\/em>.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Greff estimates that Ameristar has spent $217 million on the former Mojito Pointe<\/strong>. However, like Lumiere Place<\/strong> in Missouri, it comes with the state’s last gaming license, a not-invaluable commodity. Therefore, Greff projects that Pinnacle CEO Anthony Sanfilippo<\/strong> will be able to get $242 million for the unfinished Louisiana project (which will ease the sting of an anticipated 15% drop in gambling revenue at L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong>, above<\/em>) and another $306 million for Lumiere Place. The latter price is far less in both dollars and cash flow (3X) than Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> was able to extract from Penn National Gaming<\/strong> for Harrah’s Maryland Heights<\/strong> — and downright humiliating for what was supposed to be a trophy property. But Sanfilippo’s not exactly holding aces at the moment.<\/p>\n


\nIt’s World Series of Poker time<\/strong>, which means you can expect a tribute<\/a> to CityCenter<\/strong> CEO Bobby Baldwin<\/strong> in our local papers, a seemingly annual ritual. Thankfully, Baldwin’s MGM Resorts International<\/strong> superiors aren’t taking his sniffy attitude toward Internet<\/strong> poker. If only they’d been less quick to trust his oversight regarding the Harmon Hotel<\/strong> and Vdara Death Ray<\/strong>, Baldwin’s signature Vegas achievements.<\/p>\n

“Cotai Strip Cotaiticketing”?!?!?<\/strong> That’s the latest clunky bit of nomenclature to get ixnayed by Macao<\/strong> courts, as trademark-crazed Sands China<\/strong> functionaries run around, trying to rubber-stamp anything they can imagine. Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> is having a good week, continuing to play racketball with Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pinnacle Entertainment finds itself in an interesting pickle today: It’s awfully far into its Federal Trade Commission-blocked purchase of Ameristar Casinos to blow it up by, say, selling three or more Ameristar properties or otherwise triggering a fallout. And if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,56,28,7,37,84,62,93,11,39,69,25,12,143,38,132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29741,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10914\/revisions\/29741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}