{"id":16090,"date":"2015-05-20T13:15:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T21:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16090"},"modified":"2015-05-20T13:16:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T21:16:03","slug":"16090","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/16090\/","title":{"rendered":"MGM rebellion quashed; No ‘Net poker for Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lion\"<\/a>Jonathan Litt<\/strong>‘s battle for control of MGM Resorts International<\/strong>‘s destiny is over almost before it was begun. His Land & Buildings<\/strong> firm has dropped its slate of candidates<\/a> for the MGM board of directors, after failing to gain traction with major shareholders like Kirk Kerkorian<\/strong> and John Paulson<\/strong>. As for Litt’s vision of $55\/share MGM stock, Union Gaming<\/strong> analyst Chris Jones<\/strong> dismissed it as Pollyanna thinking.<\/p>\n

Litt couldn’t resist\u00a0taking a victory lap anyway, issuing a self-congratulatory statement<\/a> that read, in part:\u00a0\u201cSince our initial engagement with MGM in January 2015, the company and its insider shareholders have finally taken a series of steps that, in our view, can help address the company\u2019s persistent undervaluation and underperformance.” Litt couldn’t walk away without one final dig at current management, could he?<\/p>\n

Proxy-advisor firms were of little help to shareholders, their advice being all over the board. Their recommendations ranged from an endorsement of the existing MGM board to a push for three of the Litt candidates. L&B is taking credit for MGM’s consideration of a REIT structure (which \"murren_t198\"<\/a>may be merely its coincidence) and its stated willingness to sell “any of our assets,” which is certainly a shift in CEO Jim Murren<\/strong>‘s stance. After all, this is the man who vowed to hold onto Circus Circus<\/strong> for time immemorial.<\/p>\n

“Land and Buildings will continue to monitor MGM\u2019s progress in unlocking shareholder value and intends to continue to hold the Board and management team accountable,” L&B threatened. “We believe that going forward, MGM shareholders will be less tolerant of sub-par operations, poor capital allocation decisions, and executive compensation that is not aligned with performance.”<\/p>\n

Yup, I’ll bet that Murren is just quaking in his boots.<\/p>\n

* Nevada<\/strong> ratepayers, prepare to pony up on behalf of MGM, which proposes to decouple from Nevada Power<\/strong> and buy its energy on the open market. Texas<\/strong>-based\u00a0Tenaska Power Services Co<\/strong>. will be the preferred provider, starting early next year<\/a>. MGM assures the public that the move\u00a0\u201cwill not be contrary to the public interest, or otherwise place undue burdens on remaining utility ratepayers.\u201d Tenaska relies heavily on natural gas and solar energy, which may partly explain what made it attractive alternative — as MGM joins the exodus of Wynn Resorts<\/strong> and Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> from Nevada Power’s clientele.<\/p>\n

* Internet<\/strong> gambling can take a number in Mississippi<\/strong>. The chairman of the House Gaming Committee<\/strong>, state Rep. Richard Bennett<\/strong> (R), \"Richard<\/a>has identified sports betting and a lottery as higher-priority items when it comes to new games of chance. He’s got a good point<\/a>: According to his statistics, half of Mississippians lack A) a computer or B) Internet access. Kinda hard to build an online-poker revenue base off that. The willingness of the Lege to consider any<\/em> gambling expansion is attributable to a drop in casino revenues stretching \u00a0across the last seven years, mainly in the river counties, and the number of casinos has fallen to 24 from 26.<\/p>\n

* The Queen of Comps, Jean Scott<\/strong>, is calling for player backlash<\/a> against the IRS<\/strong>‘ plan to lower the reporting threshold for casino jackpots from $1,200 to $600. Considering that the odds of hitting the lower number are by definition better, it’s a cinch that players and casinos will soon be up to their ears in paperwork. You go, Jean!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Litt‘s battle for control of MGM Resorts International‘s destiny is over almost before it was begun. His Land & Buildings firm has dropped its slate of candidates for the MGM board of directors, after failing to gain traction with … 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":[117,37,11,35,12,74,32,31,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090"}],"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=16090"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16093,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16090\/revisions\/16093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}