{"id":8912,"date":"2012-04-30T16:21:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T00:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8912"},"modified":"2020-03-30T06:12:33","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:12:33","slug":"the-biggest-losers-the-facebook-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-biggest-losers-the-facebook-factor\/","title":{"rendered":"The biggest losers; The Facebook factor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There’s a new power player in gaming and it’s … Brookfield Asset Management<\/strong>? The Canadian lender is already calling the shots (along with Warner Gaming<\/strong>) at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino<\/strong>, a $1.5 billion quagmire into which Morgans Hotel Group<\/strong> led Credit Suisse<\/strong>. Today, Brookfield officially ousted Sol Kerzner<\/strong> from Atlantis Paradise Island<\/strong> and one other Bahamas resort, gaining over $1 billion worth of assets for a cool $175 million. Among those getting cleaned out in the transaction are Kerzner backers Goldman Sachs<\/strong> and — you guessed it — Colony Capital<\/strong>. The twosome are already partners in misery, Colony CEO Tom Barrack<\/strong> having sold Goldman a big chunk of the then-Las Vegas Hilton<\/strong>, which Goldman now has to turn around after Colony lost the Hilton flag and generally ran the place into the ground. Goldman also way overpaid for Carl Icahn<\/strong>‘s Las Vegas<\/strong> and Laughlin<\/strong> casinos, so it’s no stranger to buyer’s remorse.<\/p>\n

\"\"Another piece of the fallen Kerzner empire, Atlantis the Palm<\/strong>, is forfeited to a subsidiary of CityCenter<\/strong> co-owner\u00a0Dubai World<\/strong>, a company whose financial problems ($26 billion in debt, most of it now held by Abu Dhabi<\/strong>) make\u00a0Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> seem only mildly afflicted. Kerzner’s problems stemmed from an LBO in 2006 — sound familiar? — a time when gaming stocks in particular were reaching dizzying heights. One of Kerzner’s fellow debt junkies, Gary Loveman<\/strong>, is beginning to look as though he were well rid of the Baha Mar<\/strong> project that Caesars fled several years back. The Chinese-bankrolled resort has run up a $3.4 billion price tag and among its anchor tenants is — oh no!<\/em> — Morgans Hotel Group. Loveman’s best deals may ultimately turn out to be the ones he didn’t<\/em> make.<\/p>\n

\"\"Social gambling is becoming<\/strong> all the rage on Facebook<\/strong>, having grown 33% from 2010 to 2011<\/a>, and over 50% more in the first few months of 2012. (It sure beats the heck out of running a farm.) Ergo, Facebook is the battleground of a proxy war between casino companies whose applications are fighting it out for free-play market share. Wynn Resorts<\/strong> is mulling an alliance<\/a> with Poker by Zynga<\/strong> (and if Internet<\/strong> poker is legalized in Nevada<\/strong> and elsewhere, Zynga could also team with Wynn-affiliated Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>, whose geographic presence is complimentary to Wynn’s). Wall Street<\/strong> may have looked askance at International Game Technology<\/strong>‘s half-billion-purchase of popular social-gaming firm Double Down<\/strong>, but it’s seeming more and more like an astute wager on CEO Patti Hart<\/strong>‘s part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a new power player in gaming and it’s … Brookfield Asset Management? The Canadian lender is already calling the shots (along with Warner Gaming) at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, a $1.5 billion quagmire into which Morgans Hotel … 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":[88,82,56,3,28,134,4,81,149,7,29,22,37,49,102,30,32,38,146],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912"}],"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=8912"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26583,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8912\/revisions\/26583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}