{"id":15870,"date":"2015-04-15T09:39:02","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T17:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=15870"},"modified":"2015-04-15T09:53:38","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T17:53:38","slug":"freeman-takes-aim-pinnacle-commands-high-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/freeman-takes-aim-pinnacle-commands-high-price\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeman takes aim; Pinnacle commands high price"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R3vWiAGv4E4\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Geoff Freeman<\/strong> continues his aggressive agenda at the <strong>American Gaming Association<\/strong>. In a move possibly intended to take the heat off American online casinos, he&#8217;ll calling for &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clarionledger.com\/story\/news\/2015\/04\/13\/illegal-gambling-target-joint-push\/25747019\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">and promising the AGA will take the lead in<\/a> &#8212; a beatdown on illegal and merely shady forms of gambling, such as <!--more--><strong>Internet<\/strong> sweepstakes parlors and offshore &#8216;Net casinos. Citing the specter of lost taxes, he said,\u00a0&#8220;One of the things that I want to do is draw a sharp distinction between illegal gambling and legal casinos you may have in your state.\u00a0We are a heavily regulated business that does things on the up-and-up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for those states which have anti-fantasy-sports laws they don&#8217;t enforce, Freeman says they should legalize the practice and let casinos run it. According to <strong>The Associated Press<\/strong>, &#8220;The [AGA]\u00a0intends to fund research into illegal gambling to find patterns and ties to organized crime.&#8221; It&#8217;s an ambitious agenda but it already has the backing of <strong>Mississippi<\/strong> Attorney General <strong>Jim Hood<\/strong>. He may be but one foot soldier in General Freeman&#8217;s army but you&#8217;ve got to start somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>* <strong>GLPI<\/strong>&#8216;s attempt to take over <strong>Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> has generated little excitement, so GLPI <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/gaming-and-leisure-properties-raises-bid-for-pinnacles-real-estate-1429041312\" target=\"_blank\">is taking the best-and-final route<\/a>, according to the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, upping its offer from $35.77 to $40\/share. Quoth <strong>Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst <strong>Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>, &#8220;we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pinnacle_logo_lr.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8068\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pinnacle_logo_lr.gif\" alt=\"pinnacle_logo_lr\" width=\"234\" height=\"158\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pinnacle_logo_lr.gif 234w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pinnacle_logo_lr-150x101.gif 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px\" \/><\/a>believe the $40 offer has either been previously articulated to PNK and ignored, or turned down.&#8221; The raised price places a high-premium 12X cash flow price on the deal, which suggests either desperation or imprudence at GLPI. Adds Santarelli, &#8220;If nothing else, given the reluctance to sign off on a deal that would represent a healthy premium from the valuations of January, we believe PNK clearly has considerably more information than what has been articulated to date regarding a potential structure and the consequences of the purge.&#8221; Pinnacle <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2015-04-14\/gaming-leisure-said-to-raise-bid-for-pinnacle-s-casinos\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">has until tomorrow<\/a> to accept the deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst <strong>Joseph Greff<\/strong> isn&#8217;t biting on the &#8220;best and final&#8221; language, writing, &#8220;We ascribe a very low probability of PNK not accepting a deal north of $40. If PNK\u2019s management\/Board do not engage with GLPI to secure a low $40 offer, we think there is little chance that GLPI would walk away.&#8221; He thinks GLPI won&#8217;t bother dealing with Pinnacle management but will make future offers straight to the shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>* Speaking of REITs, <strong>Land &amp; Buildings<\/strong>&#8216; attempted partial takeover of the <strong>MGM Resorts International<\/strong> board <a href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/business\/299609371.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">is meeting with a frosty response<\/a> from MGM, which doesn&#8217;t care for the REIT structure proposed by L&amp;B. It&#8217;s <em>deja vu<\/em> for the latter, which got the cold shoulder from <strong>Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> when it proposed REIT-izing <strong>Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>. MGM, for its part, cites high recent turnover on its own board as one of the reasons not to shake things up further with a heavy dose of L&amp;B candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Geoff Freeman continues his aggressive agenda at the American Gaming Association. In a move possibly intended to take the heat off American online casinos, he&#8217;ll calling for &#8212; and promising the AGA will take the lead in &#8212; a beatdown &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/freeman-takes-aim-pinnacle-commands-high-price\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[174,190,37,11,35,30,25,12,74,31,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15870"}],"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=15870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15876,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15870\/revisions\/15876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}