{"id":19703,"date":"2017-05-05T06:11:46","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T14:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=19703"},"modified":"2017-05-05T06:11:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T14:11:46","slug":"analysts-station-underperforms-miami-beach-bans-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/analysts-station-underperforms-miami-beach-bans-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysts: Station underperforms; Miami Beach bans casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Station Casinos<\/strong> reported revenue yesterday and the Palms<\/strong> is on track for 6% ROI this year. So there’s some work to be done. \"\"Management is already off to a good start by closing the world’s largest<\/a> Hooters<\/strong>, victim of sagging performance. This just goes to show that previous, private equity owners should never have replaced\u00a0Gardu\u00f1o’s<\/strong>, one of the last vestiges of the George Maloof<\/strong> era. If we could offer a suggestion to Station, it should get ahead of the curve and convert Hooters into an e-sports arena. They’ve got the footprint for it and, if MGM Resorts International<\/strong> is buying into the e-sports phenomenon (at Luxor<\/strong>), you can be sure it’s a pretty safe bet.<\/p>\n

“While this quarter was nothing to write home about (as was expected), we are willing to be patient here, to a degree,” JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> wrote, taking into wage, population and job growth in Clark County. Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> agreed that the near term would “remain choppy,” identifying weak food and beverage performance, and ongoing construction at Palace Station<\/strong> as impediments to progress. But Station’s “issues are transitory” and unlikely to dampen and strong performance in the back half of 2017 and throughout 2018, despite the drag-anchor effect of the Palms. Despite a weak quarter there, Station management thinks it can get return on investment up to 11% by year’s end. Given the quality of the property, that ought to be achievable.<\/p>\n

* Now he tells us. Hard Rock International<\/strong> CEO Jim Allen<\/strong> gave a lecture on what he’d learned in the casino biz, dispensing some wisdom that the industry should have been heeding<\/a> during the Big Bust of \"\"2008: finance your casino probably and don’t get over-leveraged and “we will be fine in this industry.” Took bad for Colony Capital<\/strong>, Columbia Sussex<\/strong>, Station and Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>, which all crashed and burned from too much debt. Avoid high interest, too, such as the 14% hard-money rate that the Trump Organization<\/strong> was paying when Allen worked there. By contrast, the Seminole Tribe<\/strong>\u00a0counterintuitively bought Hard Rock in 2008 and the rest is history, thanks to the strength of the brand. The company is planting its flag in Berlin<\/strong>, Times Square<\/strong> and Atlantic City<\/strong>, and \u201cIf they want to legalize gaming in Cuba<\/strong> we\u2019re all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

* In a related development, the Seminoles are getting some unwitting help from the government of Miami Beach<\/strong>, whose city council voted unanimously to ban casinos<\/a> from the municipality. \u201cThe Florida<\/strong> Legislature had agreed that there was going to be one or two casinos in our backyard, without us even having a moment to weigh in any way,\u201d said mayoral candidate Dan Gelber<\/strong>. This will frustrate Fontainebleau Hotel<\/strong>, which has been hankering for a casino, but the council valued the counsel of local mogul Norman Braman<\/strong>, who argued that the minuses of casino gambling outweighed the pluses. If like sentiment catches on in Miami<\/strong> proper it will be very bad news for Genting Group<\/strong> and its big plans there.<\/p>\n

* If PokerStars<\/strong> weren’t already such a force in gaming, news of its new pact with International Game Technology<\/strong> would be even bigger news. As it stands, it’s still pretty big<\/a>. PokerStars will license game content from the rich IGT library, including evergreen\u00a0Wheel of Fortune<\/em>. Considering that poker revenue has flattened, this is an astute counter-attack by PokerStars management. House-banked games are where PokerStars revenue growth is at and that fact should only become more so on the strength of today’s news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Station Casinos reported revenue yesterday and the Palms is on track for 6% ROI this year. So there’s some work to be done. Management is already off to a good start by closing the world’s largest Hooters, victim of sagging … 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":[3,15,18,42,36,120,64,165,7,140,29,22,11,178,200,74,57,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19703"}],"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=19703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19704,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19703\/revisions\/19704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}