US regional casino giant Pinnacle Entertainment has won Federal Trade Commission approval of its $2.8 billion acquisition of rival Ameristar Casinos and will sell off riverboat properties in St. Louis and Louisiana to satisfy antitrust rules.
The merger between the two Las Vegas-based companies, accomplished at $26.50 a share plus the assumption of $1.9 billion in Ameristar debt, gives Pinnacle 15 casinos and racetrack casinos in nine states, effectively doubling the size of NYSE-listed Pinnacle.
Pinnacle agreed with the FTC to sell its Lumiere Place in downtown St. Louis—the company owns three casinos in the market—and Ameristar’s $580 million casino development in Lake Charles, La. The latter will be sold to Golden Nugget Casinos, a subsidiary of Houston-based Landry’s, for $250.9 million, which includes Ameristar’s development costs to date plus a $37 million credit to Golden Nugget. Louisiana regulators have to sign off on the sale.
Carl Icahn’s Tropicana Entertainment is reported to be the buyer for Lumiere in a $260 million deal that includes several adjacent hotel parcels. The transaction requires FTC approval and approval from Missouri regulators. Tropicana operates eight casinos, including the Tropicana Atlantic City, the Tropicana Laughlin in southern Nevada and the MontBleau in Lake Tahoe in northern Nevada. Icahn also owns the stalled Fountainebleau project on the Las Vegas Strip.
Pinnacle has a 23% stake in The Grand – Ho Tram Strip, which opened last month on the southern Vietnam coast, and will operate the resort’s second hotel and casino, slated to open in 2017.
