Four bid for bankrupt AC hotel-casino

Friday, Oct. 6, 2000 | 11:11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

ATLANTIC CITY -- Billionaire financier Carl Icahn, who took control last week of the Sands Hotel & Casino, is wasting no time throwing his weight around.

Icahn won permission from New Jersey casino regulators to intervene in Park Place Entertainment Corp.'s bid to take over the bankrupt Claridge Casino Hotel.

In a 4-0 vote, the state Casino Control Commission said Wednesday that the Sands will be allowed to present evidence and witnesses when Las Vegas-based Park Place Entertainment comes before the panel later this month seeking approval of its proposed $77.1 million purchase of the Claridge.

After Wednesday's Casino Control Commission vote, Icahn's Sands on Thursday bid $105 million for the Claridge and Park Place bid an undisclosed amount for the property, the Press of Atlantic City newspaper reported. The Press of Atlantic City, quoting an attorney for a Claridge bondholders' committee, also reported there were two other bids, one from a public company and the other from an entrepreneur.

Two other gaming companies -- Black Hawk Gaming & Development Co. of Black Hawk, Colo., and Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. of Biloxi, Miss. -- had been interested but apparently did not bid.

Icahn, who beat out Park Place Entertainment for the right to pull the Sands out of bankruptcy in July, contends that a Park Place takeover of the Claridge would effectively strangle the Sands, which is next door.

Icahn lawyer Hersh Kozlov told the commission that Park Place's ownership of Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino, Bally's Park Place and a vacant seven-acre parcel that separates the Sands from the Boardwalk would give Park Place too much power.

In addition, Park Place could shut down a conveyor belt "people mover" linking the Claridge and the Sands with the Boardwalk, Kozlov said. Last year, 850,000 pedestrians used it.

"They don't want the competition, and what they don't want is Park Place," said Clive Cummis, a Park Place Entertainment lawyer.

Historically, the commission has been reluctant to allow casino companies to intervene in their competitors' hearings.

But commission Chairman James Hurley said Icahn's intervention would help regulators better understand the issues at play as they try to decide whether another Park Place casino would result in "undue economic concentration," which is barred under the New Jersey Casino Control Act.

Park Place already owns three casinos here -- Caesars, Park Place and the Atlantic City Hilton.

"On balance, the true adversity that exists between Park Place and Sands regarding the competitive forces at work in the marketplace will, in my view, result in a fuller record from which to judge the economic concentration issue," Hurley said.

The hearing on that topic will be held by the commission Oct. 26.