{"id":11557,"date":"2013-09-19T12:27:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T20:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11557"},"modified":"2018-02-14T08:53:25","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T16:53:25","slug":"caesars-borrowing-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/caesars-borrowing-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Caesars: Borrowing time"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Caesars Entertainment Corporation<\/em> (CZR) is a highly overvalued gaming, hotel, and entertainment company with deteriorating fundamentals on all levels in a highly competitive environment<\/em>.” — Aaron Zander<\/strong>, Seeking Alpha<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s that moment we’ve all been waiting for, the one where Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> explains how it intends to pay down at least some of its $23.5 billion in debt. The answer? Borrow more money. Near-term debt will be exchanged for long-term notes<\/a>, to the tune of $4.85 billion. Both the Octavius Tower<\/strong> at Caesars Palace<\/strong> and The Linq<\/strong> will be pledged against the new debt. Poor Linq: Not even finished and already a hostage to the bond market. (Paris-Las Vegas<\/strong>, Flamingo Las Vegas<\/strong>, Harrah’s Las Vegas<\/strong>, Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino<\/strong>, Harrah’s Laughlin<\/strong> and Harrah’s Atlantic City<\/strong> have also been reported as collateral on the deal.)<\/p>\n

Even with some fancy footwork, Caesars’ debt-to-cash-flow ratios make for queasy reading<\/a>, but bankers doubtless enjoy writing new notes to CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong>, at higher and higher interest rates. Meantime, analysts are talking about a prepackaged bankruptcy<\/a> of Caesars Operating Co<\/strong>. — where most of the debt is stashed<\/a> — in terms of inevitability. Given the company’s strategic errors, it’s difficult to see how it avoids Chapter 11.<\/p>\n

On a happier note<\/strong>, the World Series of Poker<\/strong> is finally up and running online<\/a>. It took a little while to work out the kinds. Now we’ll see if the superior WSOP brand equity will negate Ultimate Poker’s early start on the market.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cleverly, Loveman has sold<\/strong> the City of Boston<\/strong> a bill of goods on Suffolk Downs<\/strong>. The Boston Globe<\/em>‘s Mark Arsenault<\/strong> has run the numbers and found that the slots at Suffolk would have to do 2X-2.5X the industry average and generate “astronomical” amounts of money — more even that U.S. leader Resorts World New York<\/strong>, in a much larger market — in order to meet Beantown politicos’ $1 billion\/year profit-sharing trigger.\u00a0UNLV’s <\/span>David G. Schwartz<\/strong> thinks the actual number is likelier to be in the $600-$700 range. It still looks like Boston got hornswoggled but good by Caesars and Suffolk. <\/span>Some analysts though say it’s “possible” and could<\/em> happen<\/a>, even though Boston negotiated using Ernst & Young<\/strong> numbers that peaked at $917 million a year. Boston is probably out $20 million and Caesars is laughing all the way to the bank.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Caesars Entertainment Corporation (CZR) is a highly overvalued gaming, hotel, and entertainment company with deteriorating fundamentals on all levels in a highly competitive environment.” — Aaron Zander, Seeking Alpha. It’s that moment we’ve all been waiting for, the one where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,112,101,31,38,132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11557"}],"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=11557"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21181,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11557\/revisions\/21181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}