A $17.3 billion buyout creating the world’s biggest casino company won final approval Friday, with New Jersey gambling regulators agreeing to let Nevada-based Eldorado Resorts Inc. acquire Caesars Entertainment Corp.
It comes after an antitrust analyst had assured the New Jersey Casino Control Commission that the deal affecting four of the nine casino-resorts in Atlantic City would not concentrate too much of the local gambling economy in one company’s hands.
Eldorado, which owns two Louisiana casinos including the Belle of Baton Rouge, is expected to close the deal in coming days, vaulting a company that began with a single family-owned casino-hotel in Reno, Nevada, in 1973 to the top of the gambling ownership world. It will have 52 properties in 16 states, including Las Vegas Strip casino-resorts like Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, Flamingo and Linq.
The buyout also affects Caesars properties in the United Kingdom, Egypt, Canada and a golf course in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau. Caesars owns the Harrah’s location in New Orleans and the Horseshoe in Bossier City.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn will be the largest single shareholder, with more than 10% of the combined company, Eldorado CEO Thomas Reeg said this week. Icahn acquired a large block of Caesars shares after that company emerged from bankruptcy protection in late 2017 and pushed for the sale.
Eldorado plans to buy Caesars stock at $12.30 per share, using $8.70 in cash and the remainder in Eldorado shares, Reeg told Nevada regulators. Eldorado will own 56% of the merged company, which will continue operations and stock trading under the name Caesars Entertainment Inc. Read the full story.
