Efforts by the local press to cover the Wynn vs. Wynn scrum were pretty well obliterated this week by a one-two punch from the New York Times. Behind the “no girls allowed” 
treehouse mentality of the Wynn Resorts board lurks a wealth of complexity. The primal issue is Nevada Board of Education President Elaine Wynn‘s desire to lift the $10 million cap on the amount of stock she can sell every year, which the board opposes for fear it will destabilize ownership of the company, especially CEO Steve Wynn‘s controlling position, which could take second place to that of T. Rowe Price (whom Ms. Wynn is trying to recruit). Five years ago, Mr. Wynn said, “We’re still partners in the business; I respect and value and really covet her opinion on issues. She has a real feel for the business that’s terrific.”
Whether or not he still feels that way, he’s contractually constrained from taking any stance other than supporting Ms. Wynn’s re-election to the board. Thus, she starts out with 19% of the stock at her back and she’s launched a high-profile campaign to get Wall Street to rally to her banner. It describes the company as “a reflection of Elaine’s continuous vision, implemented through creativity, entrepreneurship and dedication.” She also likes to point out that she was renominated to the board in 2012, without qualms, even though she and Steve Wynn were embroiled in litigation over the stock-sale agreement at the time. Ms. Wynn and the board have traded SEC filings of escalating vitriol, with ex-wife finally unleashing on stockholders the ultimate weapon: a Power Point presentation which explains her position with admirable clarity.
Ms. Wynn continues to hammer the board on its lack of diversity, which the Times says 
“could be potent, some experts said, considering that the company is part of the hospitality industry and studies have shown women are the primary decision makers when it comes to travel plans.” Her commitment to Wynn Resorts is more resolute than hers to Nevada: To skip $11 million in Nevada sales taxes, Ms. Wynn had a Francis Bacon painting sent to Oregon instead. (Just think what that money could have done for Nevada schools.)
Wynn Resorts pushed back earlier this week with a shareholder letter (and accompanying Power Point slides) that characterized its doyenne as “self serving … ineffective.” Since the board election isn’t for another month, just think how nasty this could get before it’s done. The board also insinuated that she might have taken advantage of insider information to help nephew Andrew Pascal get the Strip acreage where James Packer intends to build a megaresort (land which Wynn Resorts had ample opportunity to purchase and toward which Steve Wynn only expressed a passing interest). The sensitivity of this last point gives the lie to Wynn Resorts’ frequent assertions that competition on that corner could only be good for business.
Ms. Wynn replied only obliquely to the latest round of criticism, saying that she was the board member who asked the tough questions (“The men are not comfortable with that sometimes.”) and taking a shot at ex-Gov.Bob Miller and his $500,000 board-president sinecure. “[Miller] is probably more dependent on the company and the management than I am,” she sniped. As I said, it’s getting nasty.
* Speaking of nastiness, Las Vegas Sands is coming under fire for allegedly hiding resort fees.
* It took two years, but Genting Group is finally ready to break ground on Resorts World Las Vegas on May 5 (a trifle sooner than expected), aiming for a 2017 completion date. The delay was chalked up to “necessary fine tuning” of Paul Steelman‘s design. As Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani observed, “they’re being cautious, which I would expect them to be, with the economy and the downturn.” According to the Las Vegas Sun, “Giunchigliani, whose district includes the north Strip, said she was able to secure a decommissioning plan so that if Resorts World falls through for some reason, it won’t be ‘just sitting there like the Fontainebleau.'”
Well, that’s a relief.
