{"id":11325,"date":"2013-08-19T10:19:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T18:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11325"},"modified":"2013-08-19T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T18:51:08","slug":"st-louis-pinnacle-out-icahn-in-cosmos-death-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/st-louis-pinnacle-out-icahn-in-cosmos-death-wish\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Louis: Pinnacle out, Icahn in; Cosmo’s death wish"},"content":{"rendered":"

After fielding several offers, Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> has liquidated Lumiere Place Casino<\/strong> and its affiliated Four Seasons<\/strong> hotel to … Carl Icahn<\/strong>. Uncle Carl spent $260 million to close the deal. Considering that the book value of Lumiere \"\"Place is $401.5 million, you could say he got a bargain. He certainly Pinnacle where he wanted it, since it was under Federal Trade Commission<\/strong>-imposed duress to sell the property and soon. Icahn called it a “judicious acquistion<\/a>.” However, as Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> writes, “we believe the actual multiple to the buyer is likely a tad higher than the implied 7.5x [cash flow].” Since the industry average for this sort of transaction is seven times EBITDA, did Icahn overpay for Lumiere — a disappointing performer already? How unlike him. As for his counterpart, Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Anthony Sanfilippo<\/strong>, given the assets he gains from Ameristar Casinos<\/strong> by forfeiting Lumiere Place, he’s achieving addition by subtraction on a significant scale.<\/p>\n

Does the Cosmopolitan<\/strong> have a death wish? You’d think so<\/a>, given that it has neither gone non-union (as per Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>) nor signed the same deal \"\"that the Culinary Union<\/strong> and every other major Strip property — save Venelazzo<\/strong> — have agreed upon. No, Cosmo seems to think it deserves special treatment … and will be rewarded with picketing on a weekly basis<\/a>. It has enough trouble scaring up business. How CEO John Unwin<\/strong> (left<\/em>) thinks that following in the footsteps<\/a> of Margaret Elardi<\/strong> is a good idea is beyond me. The Cosmo’s empty blather — “We feel we have been making good progress on behalf of our CoStars and we are hopeful that progress can continue in a positive direction. As always, our highest priority is the safety and comfort of our guests and CoStars and we will continue to work with the authorities<\/em>” — gives one little cause for hope.<\/p>\n

Colbert report<\/strong>. Executives at Cantor Gaming<\/strong> probably wish they’d never heard of Mike Colbert<\/strong>, formerly affiliated with Cantor and currently under New York State<\/strong> indictment. However, Colbert isn’t doing them any favors with his current high-profile activities, as Howard Stutz<\/strong> entertainingly chronicles<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After fielding several offers, Pinnacle Entertainment has liquidated Lumiere Place Casino and its affiliated Four Seasons hotel to … Carl Icahn. Uncle Carl spent $260 million to close the deal. Considering that the book value of Lumiere Place is $401.5 … 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":[40,148,82,66,151,39,30,25,12,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325"}],"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=11325"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11331,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions\/11331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}