{"id":8083,"date":"2011-12-15T09:48:50","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T17:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8083"},"modified":"2011-12-15T09:48:50","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T17:48:50","slug":"why-is-this-man-still-smiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/why-is-this-man-still-smiling\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is this man still smiling?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3060\" title=\"thomas-barrack\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/thomas-barrack.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/thomas-barrack.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/thomas-barrack-150x105.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/thomas-barrack-300x210.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>Colony Capital<\/strong> has a <strong>Nevada<\/strong> gaming license. <strong>Ronald P. Johnson<\/strong> does not, even though he&#8217;s been advising <strong>Goldman Sachs<\/strong> on its gaming operations for the past year. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vegasinc.com\/news\/2011\/dec\/14\/fight-over-las-vegas-hilton-casino-operations-cont\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">Big mistake<\/a>. On Tuesday, a <strong>Clark County<\/strong> judge split the baby that is the <strong>Las Vegas Hilton<\/strong>. Feckless Colony will run the casino (and bag the gambling revenue), Goldman will have the rest. In other words, Colony got the gold mine and Goldman got the shaft. As Colony CEO <strong>Tom Barrack<\/strong> gloated, all other aspects of the LVH are &#8220;subsidiary&#8221; to the casino. Johnson is applying for a gaming license and, if he&#8217;s been a good boy, <strong>Santa Claus<\/strong> may <!--more-->have it in his stocking by Christmas. As part of his scorched-earth exit strategy, Barrack (who has orally written off the Hilton&#8217;s $280 million purchase price, perhaps more) threatened to surrender his gaming license to thwart Goldman&#8217;s designs. We should get so lucky! But give <em>Twilight<\/em> Boy credit (albeit grudgingly) for outfoxing his pursuers in this round.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-6757\" title=\"barden\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/barden-105x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"105\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/barden-105x150.jpg 105w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/barden-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/barden.jpg 281w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 105px) 100vw, 105px\" \/>Majestic Star has a new<\/strong> set of owners, mainly <strong>Wayzata Investment Partners<\/strong>, out in the ritziest suburbs of <strong>Minneapolis<\/strong>. A bankruptcy court cut <strong>Majestic Sta<\/strong>r&#8217;s debt from $630 million to $130 million, although the pain was unevenly spread: Senior creditors got 52 cents on the dollar, senior note holders swapped debt for ownership in the reorganized company and everybody else will be fighting over crumbs, if that. Considering the deep hole into which Majestic Star burrowed on his watch, perhaps sacking CEO <strong>Mike Darley<\/strong> (a relic of the <strong>Don Barden<\/strong> era), should be the new board&#8217;s first order of business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We&#8217;re #1!<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vegasinc.com\/news\/2011\/dec\/14\/nevada-going-five-years-foreclosure-capital-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">For our fifth straight year<\/a>. Woo-hoo! Or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colony Capital has a Nevada gaming license. Ronald P. Johnson does not, even though he&#8217;s been advising Goldman Sachs on its gaming operations for the past year. Big mistake. On Tuesday, a Clark County judge split the baby that is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/why-is-this-man-still-smiling\/\">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":[3,28,83,14,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8083"}],"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=8083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8084,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8083\/revisions\/8084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}