{"id":8942,"date":"2012-05-04T12:18:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T20:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8942"},"modified":"2020-05-29T06:16:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T14:16:50","slug":"sahara-devils-in-the-details-does-your-mother-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/sahara-devils-in-the-details-does-your-mother-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Sahara: Devils in the details; Does your mother know?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Barbara De Lollis<\/strong> had better re-cork the champagne. Wall Street Journal<\/em> coverage of Sam Nazarian<\/strong>‘s much-hyped, $300 million Sahara<\/strong> loan raises grave doubts about the viability of the project<\/a>, budgeted at $415 million. According to Pulitzer Prize<\/strong>-winning reporter Alexandra Berzon<\/strong>, The Naz has nine months in which to raise the extra $115 million and its interest rate cannot exceed 6%. Since it took J.P. Morgan Chase<\/strong> only two weeks to scare up 300 mil, that should be a breeze, right?<\/p>\n

\"\"Nazarian fixer-upper SLS South Beach<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Maybe not<\/strong>, when you consider the fiendish terms imposed on Nazarian for his 300,000,000 pieces of silver (thanks to S&G<\/em> reader Howard Park<\/strong> for pointing this out to me) and the revelation that the announced “two weeks” were actually more like three months, says Chase boss Timothy Donahue<\/strong>. Smilin’ Sammy Naz “has agreed to pay investors a yield of 13% in order to get the loan financing done, according to a person familiar with the matter. That is among the highest rates for a Las Vegas<\/strong> casino loan, say Peggy Holloway<\/strong>, a casino analyst for Moody’s Investors Service<\/strong><\/em>.” The balance will have to come from overseas, via the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program<\/strong>, which presents complications of its own.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jobs for sale<\/strong>. The EB-5 angle means Nazarian really has closer to four months, since EB-5 is scheduled to sunset on Sept. 12. SLS Las Vegas<\/strong> would also have to meet a number of EB-5 criteria<\/a>, although it would appear to just barely qualify. (Were it one block further north … ) The job-creation quota, however, is staggeringly low<\/a>. Cordish Gaming<\/strong> raised some of the capital for Maryland Live!<\/strong> this way — perhaps 17% of the project’s $440 million tab<\/a>. In return, some of Cordish’s employees will be “insourced” from China<\/strong>, undoubtedly much to the chagrin of Maryland<\/strong> job-seekers. Perhaps Gov. Brian Sandoval<\/strong> and Old Sixty Votes Reid<\/strong> should have tempered their celebratory rhetoric thusly: “SBE will create thousands of jobs … many of them Chinese.”<\/p>\n

Berzon also gets<\/strong> to the bottom of one of the lingering mysteries behind Nazarian’s 2007 Sahara purchase. How much did he pay? Answer: $288 million (or $16.5 million\/acre), an investment that inched up to $330 million before he shuttered the place last year. All of which drives the actual break-even point for SLS Las Vegas to nearly $750 million, plus interest. Do Sahara Sam and new sidekick Colony Capital<\/strong> really believe they can drive $150 million in cash flow from that location? Even Aria<\/strong> isn’t generating EBITDA at that pace, judging by MGM Resorts International<\/strong>‘s 1Q12 results.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sinkhole de Mayo?<\/strong> I’ve been getting slammed with press release about Casino X’s special Mother’s Day<\/strong> menus and Casino Y’s Mother’s Day promotions. But what have I not<\/em> been seeing promoted? Anything to do with Cinco de Mayo<\/strong>. Oh, there are a few May 5 bashes on the Strip<\/a> but Vegas casinos are doing a piss-poor job of getting the word out. (I’m not sure what the proudly Greek Maria Menounos<\/strong> has to do with Cinco de Mayo but give the lady mad props for her tenacious ascent of the Dancing with the Stars<\/em> leader board.)<\/p>\n

Not only is Southern Nevada<\/strong> somewhere between 25% to 33% Latino, Vegas’ biggest growth story during the recession has been tourism from … Mexico<\/strong>. Kudos to MGM, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>, Penn National Gaming<\/strong>, Ed Roski<\/strong>, Michael Gaughan<\/strong> and Phil Ruffin<\/strong>, who are among the casino owners showing the flag. Conspicuously absent from LVA<\/em>‘s event listing are — to name a few — Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, Boyd Gaming<\/strong> and Station Casinos<\/strong>. For shame, gentleman.<\/p>\n

Congratulations<\/strong> to longtime Palms<\/strong> spokesman Larry Fink<\/strong>, who’s abandoning that sinking ship in favor a gig with Robert Earl<\/strong>. Fink is moving to Los Angeles<\/strong> to become vice president of celebrity entertainment at Planet Hollywood International<\/strong>. Since the latter has several Las Vegas<\/strong> footholds (including Buca di Beppo<\/strong><\/a>), I’m sure we’ll hear from him periodically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara De Lollis had better re-cork the champagne. Wall Street Journal coverage of Sam Nazarian‘s much-hyped, $300 million Sahara loan raises grave doubts about the viability of the project, budgeted at $415 million. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Alexandra Berzon, … 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":[60,34,56,3,70,28,14,152,7,52,22,72,11,122,69,119,6,54,12,57,32,19,17,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942"}],"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=8942"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27180,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8942\/revisions\/27180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}