The Belle of Baton Rouge will be sold as part of a $1.85 billion acquisition of Tropicana Entertainment by Eldorado Resorts, which owns casinos in Shreveport and Lake Charles.
Billionaire Carl Icahn’s company announced this morning that it has a definitive agreement to sell Tropicana Entertainments real estate to Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. and to merge its gaming and hotel operations into Eldorado Resorts. The deal does not include Tropicana’s Aruba assets, which will be disposed of as a closing condition. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year, subject to regulatory approvals.
Icahn Enterprises initially bought a stake in Tropicana in 2008. The Las Vegas company currently owns and runs eight casinos and resorts.
Eldorado Resorts is acquiring the operating assets of seven casinos in six states, including two in Nevada—the Tropicana Laughlin Hotel and Casino and the MontBleu Casino Resort & Spa—as well as casinos in Indiana (Tropicana Evansville); Louisiana (Belle of Baton Rouge); Mississippi (Trop Casino Greenville); Missouri (Lumière Place); and New Jersey (Tropicana Casino and Resort, Atlantic City).
These properties include approximately 7,900 slot machines, 265 table games and 5,400 hotel rooms plus dining, retail and entertainment amenities. Once the deal is done, Eldorado’s property portfolio will include about 26,800 slot machines and VLTs, more than 800 table games and over 12,500 hotel rooms.
Icahn says that when he acquired an interest in Tropicana in 2008, it was bankrupt yet undervalued. “By hiring a great CEO in Tony Rodio and a great management team, and by reinvesting every single penny of profits back into the company, we turned Tropicana into a great casino company,” he says in a prepared statement.
Tropicana recently announced plans to upgrade the Belle of Baton Rouge if the Louisiana Legislature passes a bill that would remove a provision in state law requiring riverboat casinos to be floating vessels on the water. It’s unclear if Eldorado Resorts will invest in upgrades to the 22-year-old facility.
