Casino operator Twin River Worldwide Holdings has bought three casino properties from larger counterparts Eldorado Resorts and Caesars Entertainment Corp. to expand its footprint across three new states, news emerged Friday.
Twin River has entered into an agreement with Eldorado to purchase Eldorado Resort Casino Shreveport in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Montbleu Resort, Casino and Spa in Lake Tahoe, Nevada for an overall purchase price of $155 million.
Separately, Twin River, which operates Rhode Island’s two commercial casinos, among several other properties in other states, has also entered into an agreement with Caesars and real estate investment trust VICI Properties to acquire Bally’s Atlantic City Hotel & Casino in a $25 million deal.
Twin River said on Friday that it expects the transactions to be immediately accretive to earnings. The above-noted purchase prices are subject to customary post-closing adjustments.
News about Twin River buying properties from Eldorado and Caesars emerge as the two Nevada-based gambling companies are looking to finalize their $17.3 billion merger. The deal is still subject to approvals from regulators in several states where Eldorado and Caesars operate properties, including Nevada and New Jersey’s competent regulatory bodies.
It should also be noted that the fact that Caesars has agreed to offload one of its New Jersey properties does not come as a surprise. The company owns three casinos along the Atlantic City Boardwalk, while Eldorado manages one such property there.
That would have almost certainly created competition issues in Atlantic City, which has nine operational casinos. If a sale had not occurred, the combined Caesars-Eldorado group would have owned nearly half of the city’s gambling venues.
Twin River Enters Three New States
The recently announced acquisition of the above-mentioned three casinos marks Twin River’s entry into three new states – New Jersey, Nevada, Louisiana. The three gambling venues combined feature 3,318 slot machines and nearly 200 table games, 2,092 hotel rooms, and 6,000 square feet of convention space at Eldorado’s Shreveport property.
The purchase of the three casinos is subject to approval from the Federal Trade Commission and is conditioned upon consummation of Caesars and Eldorado’s merger, which is expected to be finalized sometime in the first half of the year.
Twin River plans to finance the transactions with a combination of cash on hand and the anticipated upsizing of its existing credit facility.
The company expects to close the acquisition of the two Eldorado properties in the first half of 2021 and the purchase of the Caesars-owned casino in late 2020 or early 2021.
Eldorado previously announced that it would sell its Montbleu property in Lake Tahoe and its Shreveport property in Louisiana to Maverick Gaming in a $230 million deal. This means that Twin River is now buying the two gambling venues at a significant discount.
In a statement, Eldorado’s CEO, Tom Reeg, said that the agreement to divest the two casinos to Twin River instead was “consistent with [their] continued focus on closing the Caesars transaction in the first half of 2020.”
Source: Twin River Worldwide Holdings to Acquire Three Casinos from Eldorado and Caesars
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