Three months after Las Vegas-based Caesars Entertainment Corp. (Nasdaq: CZR) rejected his merger proposal, Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta reportedly has become an investor in the company, according to Bloomberg.
Fertitta, who reportedly remains interested in merging his Golden Nugget company with Caesars, bought about 4 million Caesars shares — a less than 1 percent stake, Bloomberg reported.
Caesars is one of the largest owners of casinos in the country. For a little longer than a decade, it has coped with the fallout of a $30 billion leveraged buyout. A restructuring left the company to be led by debt investors and hedge funds, along with Apollo Global Management and TPG — its original private equity firms.
Fertitta’s plan was to have Caesars acquire Golden Nugget and Caesars shareholders remain shareholders, transforming it into one of largest gaming and hospitality companies in the world.
The original reverse-merger deal would have made Fertitta — sole owner, CEO, chairman and president of Golden Nugget Inc., Landry’s Inc. and Fertitta Entertainment — the chairman and CEO of the combined company. He also owns the Houston Rockets, Galveston’s Pleasure Pier, the Kemah Boardwalk and the Post Oak mixed-use development in the Galleria area.
The proposed deal did not include several of Fertitta’s properties and the Rockets, which Fertitta bought in October 2017 for $2.2 billion, using $1.75 billion in equity in addition to $175 million of assumed debt and a $275 million loan, according to various reports.
Shortly after news of Fertitta’s Caesars offer first broke in October 2018, the New York Post reported that Caesars’ board planned to reject the deal.
Caesars CEO Mark Frissora is scheduled to step down this year, and investor Carl Icahn is pushing for a sale of Caesars after it amassed a 10 percent stake plus an additional 10 percent economic interest through swaps, according to Bloomberg.
