Geez, maybe the Nevada Gaming Control Board shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to green-light James Packer‘s purchase of Cannery Casino Resorts. (In a bow to noblesse oblige, Packer wasn’t even required to put in an appearance at the Nevada Gaming Commission‘s vote on the matter.) At least the NGCB might have wanted to see how the Harry Kakavas scandal plays out, especially when Kakavas purports to have Crown Ltd. execs committing improprieties on tape. And since one of the people in the hot seat is Crown CEO Rowen Craigie — with whom Nevada regulators have become quite familiar — close attention is warranted.
Regulators from Pennsylvania — a state not heretofore known for the thoroughness of its casino due diligence — are taking this matter a little more seriously. In fact, they’re sending a deputy Down Under to hear Kakavas’ sub rosa recordings in person. Having dropped the ball on Don Barden and Louis DeNaples, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board clearly doesn’t want a third botched background investigation on its ledger.
Packer, money soon parted: A $300 million writedown of other stateside Packer casino investments is on the way. Reuters’ dispatch implies that some of Packer’s Fontainebleau stake may be written off. That’s neither a vote of confidence for Packer or F’bleau, which looks more and more like the wrong project in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the time Packer bought in, it’d looked like he’d found a “steal” — and that F’bleau had been hard up for investors. Well, the second part may still be accurate.
Update: Then again … maybe both still hold water. All though all of Packer’s U.S. casino holdings (exclusive of Cannery) may be only worth $65 million combined, getting 20% of F’bleau for 65 mil still qualifies as a steal.
Isle bags U.K. venture: Even had it stuck to its knitting (U.S. regional casinos), Isle of Capri Casinos would still be in the doldrums — its revenues weren’t growing on a same-store basis. A duff casino project in the bowels of Coventry’s Ricoh Arena just made things worse and now its end is nigh. Perhaps, as Isle contends, Britain’s regulatory regime is partly to blame, but that’s an excuse which suggests Isle didn’t quite know what it was getting into — nor would a strong performance in Coventry have cured the company’s underlying malaise. Couple this with a ‘debacular’ Bahamas venture and Isle can’t come home soon enough.
Dancing Tsar? No, not he: Normally admitting to be an ABBA fan wouldn’t be a problem … unless you happen to be Vladmir Putin, that is. Bjorn Again probably never imagined they were onto the publicity coup of their careers.
