The Tropicana casino resort could be subject to some serious changes this year after it changes ownership.
As revealed by Soohyung Kim, the chairman of Bally’s Corp., which is purchasing the resort situated on the Las Vegas Strip, the casino operator would almost certainly rename the property. He also shared that the company is also likely to make a move to redevelop the casino and hotel resort that has a history of mob ties many years ago.
In an interview with a local media, Mr. Kim explained that Bally’s management has not determined what exactly it will do with the property but would definitely take into consideration various options, from simply renovating the 1,470-room casino-hotel resort to fully demolishing it and building the place all over again. The Chairman of Bally’s Corp. said that the management was open to various options but noted that knocking down the hotel-casino and building a new place from scratch could be one of the best ways to maximize the property’s value.
The information was confirmed by Mr. Kin for The Review-Journal only a day after he announced an offer to buy out Bally’s Corp., a Rhode Island-based publicly-traded casino operator that currently operates casino venues in a number of US states.
Tropicana’s Possible Name Change Follows a Series of Corporate Moves
Earlier this week, Mr. Kim, who is a managing partner of Standard General, wrote a letter to the board of directors of Bally’s Corp making an offer to purchase the shares that are still not owned by his investment firm at the price of $38 per share. According to his statement, the price represented a 30% premium to the company’s closing price on January 24th. For the time being, Standard General is already the largest shareholder of Bally’s Corp., owning 20% of its stock.
The buy-out offer would provide the shareholders of Bally’s Corp. with the opportunity to immediately realize an attractive value in cash for their investments. However, Mr. Kim noted that his buy-out offer will not affect the desire of the US casino operator to close its takeover of the Tropicana casino resort, which, according to him, is expected to be finalized over the next few quarters.
The possible name change of the Tropicana resort has followed the January 26th announcement of Caesars Entertainment that it would rebrand its Bally’s resort on the Las Vegas Strip to the Horseshoe Las Vegas, and the process is set to begin in the spring of 2022. Mr. Kim indicated that the renaming decision of Caesars Entertainment would free up Bally’s name in Las Vegas for Bally’s Corp. and, according to him, the company should use that.
A series of corporate moves resulted in the current situation.
In April 2020, Caesars Entertainment announced that it agreed to sell Bally’s Atlantic City to the casino company that was then operating under the name of Twin River Worldwide Holdings. A few months later, in October 2020, Twin River officially revealed that it had acquired the Bally’s brand name from Caesars. In addition, as part of the deal, Twin River agreed to provide a special perpetual license to Caesars Entertainment that would allow the latter to use the name at its existing Bally’s hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Soon after the announcement of the perpetual license agreement, Twin River made another announcement, only to reveal that it was changing its name to Bally’s Corp.
In April 2021, the renamed entity announced that it would take over the Tropicana casino resort in a deal worth approximately $308 million. At the time, Bally’s Corp. noted that the acquisition was expected to be finalized in early 2022.
