{"id":1549,"date":"2009-12-09T16:47:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-10T00:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=1549"},"modified":"2009-12-09T16:51:49","modified_gmt":"2009-12-10T00:51:49","slug":"wall-street-hearts-penn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wall-street-hearts-penn\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street hearts Penn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Table games having been approved for Charles Town Races & Slots<\/strong> by a 60\/40 margin, stock analysts are lurving Penn National Gaming<\/strong> … so long as Penn’s infatuation with Fontainebleau<\/strong> turns out to have been a passing malady. While those West Virginia<\/strong> tables are probably six months away, J.P. Morgan<\/strong> estimates they could add as much as $20 million to Penn’s cash flow. Further down the road, casino openings at Kansas Speedway<\/strong>, in Toledo<\/strong> and maybe even in Columbus<\/strong> promise a series of new money spigots.<\/p>\n

Here in Vegas, Union Gaming Group<\/strong>‘s Bill Lerner<\/strong> was feeling sufficiently bullish about Penn to pitch a takeover of Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>. As Lerner notes, Pinnacle is at a crossroads and its future direction is a big question mark. (72-year-old John Giovenco<\/strong>, the temporary CEO, has ruled out a long-term role and if\u00a0 interim Chairman Richard Goeglein <\/strong>takes the helm, God help Pinnacle.)<\/p>\n

\"Lumiere-252\"<\/p>\n

While Lerner’s proposed $15\/share offer represents a huge premium to a stock that closed today at $10.37\/share, it’s also a fire-sale price (5.6X EBITDA) for a company that ought to fetch at least $1.1 billion on the open market. Also, Penn doesn’t have anything in its portfolio as upscale as Pinnacle’s Lumiere Place<\/strong> (above<\/em>), so I don’t know why anybody thinks the latter company should go for cheap. If either of this duo has “trophy assets,” it’d be Pinnacle.<\/p>\n

Besides, there’s the small problem<\/strong> that Penn CEO Peter Carlino<\/strong> can’t be bothered with such talk<\/a>. A Pinnacle bid makes hella more sense than taking on a flea-ridden mastiff like F-bleau. But it would also lumber Penn with three unfinished projects and some Boardwalk acreage in Atlantic City<\/strong> of which it couldn’t rid itself without taking a big write-down. (I wish it were otherwise but we all know the score.)<\/p>\n

Assuming Penn would prevail in a bidding war for Pinnacle, it’s difficult to imagine Carlino relishing the task of finishing six or more casinos simultaneously and<\/em> paying off the debt load. He’s right to stamp this idea, “Return to sender.”<\/p>\n

A Harrah’s casino gave free liquor<\/strong> to a high roller to keep him playing? Nooooooooooo<\/a>! Next you’re going to tell me they provide female companionship, too. Is there no end to this perfidy? If the casinos don’t protect us from our basest instincts, who will?<\/p>\n

Seriously … booze and floozies are the traditional currency by which high-rollers are wooed, according to seasoned players, so Terrance K. Watanabe<\/strong>‘s accusations should hardly be serving as a wake-up call for the Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong>. Why does the NGCB seem forever to be out to lunch?<\/p>\n

(Thanks to @Rlonjohnson<\/strong> for the link<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Table games having been approved for Charles Town Races & Slots by a 60\/40 margin, stock analysts are lurving Penn National Gaming … so long as Penn’s infatuation with Fontainebleau turns out to have been a passing malady. While those … 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":[28,26,59,7,45,39,71,69,30,25,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549"}],"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=1549"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}