Harveys owner buying AC casino

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Sun International Hotels Inc. has agreed to sell Resorts Atlantic City casino for $140 million.

Colony Capital LLC, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment fund, and Nicholas Ribis, a former president and chief executive officer of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, announced the deal Monday.

The sale also includes a $40 million option to buy about 10 acres of undeveloped land next to the casino. The deal is expected to be finalized sometime this winter.

Ribis will serve as the casino's chief executive, and current Resorts President Audrey Oswell is expected to continue as chief operating officer.

Sun officials declined to comment on the sale Monday. The Bahamas-based company bought Resorts, the city's first casino, in 1996 and had poured $50 million into renovations.

A Colony spokesman said the company has no immediate plans to expand Resorts, but did not rule out additional expansion of Colony through acquisitions. The Resorts buyout is Colony's first expansion into a major gaming market.

"It was a good property that became available to Colony," said Owen Blicksilver, spokesman for Colony. "(Colony) is an active investor in the gaming industry, and has made it clear that they're interested in additional investments (in gaming). Clearly Colony ... will aggressively pursue opportunities if they develop."

Blicksilver would not rule out the possibility that Colony would expand into the Las Vegas market, but said he was unaware of any pending deals.

"(Colony) wouldn't exclude any market, but it would have to be the right property in the right location at the right price," Blicksilver said.

In the past several years, Colony has aggressively expanded its gaming portfolio through acquisitions. In February 1999, it closed on a $420 million buyout of Harveys Casino Resorts of Lake Tahoe, owner and operator of Harveys casinos in Lake Tahoe, Central City, Colo., and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Colony moved again last March, offering $1.4 billion for Pinnacle Entertainments Inc. of Glendale, Calif. That deal, approved by Pinnacle shareholders earlier this month, is expected to close by early 2001.

The Pinnacle buyout will add nine casinos to Colony's portfolio, including Boomtown casinos in Verdi, Nev., Biloxi, Miss., and Harvey, La.; Casino Magic properties in Bossier City, La., Biloxi and Bay St. Louis, Miss., and two in Argentina. On Friday, the company opened its ninth property, the Belterra Resort and Casino, located 45 miles southwest of Cincinnati in southern Indiana.

It has been reported that Colony made several unsuccessful overtures for Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. It was also rumored to be a potential bidder for the two Missouri properties recently sold by Station Casinos Inc. to Ameristar Casinos Inc., though Colony never emerged as a formal bidder.