The improved Las Vegas casino business is stirring activity among private capital groups wanting to cash out of casinos they took over during the recession, as well as the highly publicised efforts to get new projects off the ground.
The Palms and Aliante casinos are for sale, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, yet another effort is in the works to reopen the Moulin Rouge casino. Macquarie has been enlisted to evaluate the potential sale of Palms and Houlihan Lokey is marketing Aliante in North Las Vegas.
TPG and Leonard Green Partners took over the Palms in a debt restructuring five years ago. TPG, Apollo and several other investors likewise took over Aliante, once owned by Station Casinos. And Palms and Aliante aren’t the only properties for sale as owners try to cash in.
MGM Resorts is selling Crystals shopping mall at CityCenter to Simon Property Group for $1.13bn and Carl Icahn is shopping around the unfinished Fontainebleau.
Unfinished or never started projects are also in various stages of trying to start: Crown Resorts’ Alon and Genting’s Resorts World projects on the Strip and Moulin Rouge west of the Strip. Moulin Rouge president Scott Johnson is working with investors and Resource Transition Consultants on a $500m rebuild of the property.
So far, the only detail released is that a groundbreaking is scheduled for May. Moulin Rouge operated for less than six months in 1955 during Las Vegas’ segregated era as the city’s first integrated casino, an historical fact that gave it more fame than its brief history would otherwise merit.
Source: Fantini’s Gaming Report
