A legal challenge to the pending acquisition of Ameristar Casinos by Pinnacle Entertainment has been rejected.
A shareholder class action lawsuit wanted the company to rewrite its proxy statement to reflect the financial implications if the company had decided to convert to a real estate investment trust.
Ameristar advisers had reviewed the possibility of converting to an REIT, an option Penn National Gaming is considering, but the board of directors decided it would not yield good results.
Shareholder attorney Randall Baron said the details should still be laid out in the proxy statement so that shareholders can compare the options.
“I’m a little baffled why this is such a big deal,” he said. It would have meant delaying the vote, company attorneys said.
“The option to convert to an REIT is not information that a reasonable shareholder would consider relevant” when deciding how to vote, Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez said in her ruling.
