{"id":16094,"date":"2015-05-20T14:12:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T22:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16094"},"modified":"2015-05-20T14:13:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T22:13:25","slug":"penn-upbeat-about-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/penn-upbeat-about-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn “upbeat” about future; Connecticut tribes closer to new casino"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn National Gaming<\/strong> CEO Tim Wilmott<\/strong> recently broke bread with J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>, who found Penn \"Penn<\/a>management “positive and primarily focused on PENN\u2019s robust development pipeline,” which it thinks will produce improved cash flow even before the Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong> is\u00a0added to the equation. “Additionally, regional gaming trends can be described as more encouraging than not and our review of April trends and May\u2019s comparison would suggest that they are likely tracking above consensus estimates for the 2Q,” Greff wrote.<\/p>\n

Penn is projecting a 24% ROI on Plainridge Park<\/strong>, at least as long as it has the Massachusetts<\/strong> market to itself, which could be as long as three years. The company expects an 80\/20 mix of customers from Boston<\/strong> and Providence<\/strong>, respectively. Out west, its $360 million Jamul Indian Village<\/strong>\u00a0casino should benefit from greater proximity to San Diego<\/strong> than its rivals. Penn is bankrolling the development at an 11% interest rate.<\/p>\n

At the newly acquired Tropicana, Penn is planning to recoup some of its capex investments in the property (no mention of Onex Corp<\/strong>.’s proposed retail mall, however) by eliminating $10 \u00a0million in \"trop-pic\"<\/a>redundancies, etc. So if you work in the legal or accounting departments, better start updating your resumes, stat. The company thinks that it can extract an extra $30 million in cash flow in the next three years from the casino, which currently generates only $40 million in revenue. Greff crunches the numbers and concludes that, when all’s said and done, Penn paid a Strip-premium 9.5X cash flow for the Trop, which he terms “reasonable.” Although Penn management terms the existing room product “in very good shape,” it’s floating the prospect of a third tower on 15 acres that are lying fallow.<\/p>\n

* It looks like Connecticut<\/strong> casino tribes will get one satellite facility rather than the three they desired and it may take as much as 10 months \"Mohegan<\/a>longer than planned, but the state Legislature thinks it has ironed out all the constitutional kinks in the bill<\/a>. As state Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff<\/strong>\u00a0(D) put it,\u00a0“We don’t want to pass a bill that looks good only to have it stall in the future.” Mohegan Sun<\/strong> and Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> will be able to start putting out RFPs but, unlike the process in Massachusetts<\/strong>, won’t have to go over\u00a0the local-referendum hurdle\u00a0because that’s not a universal requirement in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

State Attorney General George Jepsen<\/strong> had raised a bevy of objections to the original legislation, among them the prospect that it was written in \"Bob<\/a>such a way that other tribes in the state could get casinos, too. Lawmakers huddled with Jepsen’s people but are leaving it to the Mohegans and Pequots to resolve whether Connecticut’s parimutuels can get in on the action, too. Said Duff (right<\/em>), with Delphic mystery,\u00a0“We’re not going to prevent them from doing that.\u00a0If that’s part of their business model, that’s part of their business model.”<\/p>\n

Jepsen pronounced himself satisfied<\/a> with the finished product, in part (according to The Associated Press<\/strong>) “because\u00a0it doesn’t expressly authorize more casinos.” However, the General Assembly<\/strong> has to sign off on any new Mohegan\/Pequot casino and<\/em> authorize casino gambling in the state, since the satellite casino would not be on tribal land. Still, despite a quibble or two, the tribes are getting behind the bill, releasing a statement that read,\u00a0“Our goal from the outset has been to protect the 9,300 jobs and revenue that will be lost to competition on Connecticut’s borders, and we believe this bill, if approved, will give the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot Tribes the ability to begin to take action to do so.”<\/p>\n

* S&G<\/em> congratulates Bill Wright<\/strong>, new president of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood<\/strong>, in Florida<\/strong>. Hard Rock plucked Wright from the ranks of Station Casinos<\/strong> (where has overseen three different) properties. He also put in 19 years at the agglomeration of companies that became Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>, starting at the Flamingo Hilton<\/strong> and eventually rising to regional president of the Mid-South territory. Official Liberty Bowl<\/strong> photographer, Wright also holds degrees from both of Nevada<\/strong>‘s universities … no underachiever, he.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penn National Gaming CEO Tim Wilmott recently broke bread with J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff, who found Penn management “positive and primarily focused on PENN\u2019s robust development pipeline,” which it thinks will produce improved cash flow even before the Tropicana … 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":[48,34,36,166,165,7,112,167,69,111,141,57,9,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16094"}],"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=16094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16098,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16094\/revisions\/16098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}