Caesars CEO Tom Reeg was recently asked about his company’s appetite for selling core and non-core assets, which elicited several interesting responses.
Let’s Make a Deal
They say everyone and everything has a price, and it’s a maxim to which Caesars CEO Tom Reeg likely subscribes. Some may recall that Caesars put its Flamingo Hotel up for sale for roughly $1 billion in 2022. There were no takers, so Caesars pulled the property off the market and has now engaged in updating the oldest continuously operating resort on the Las Vegas Strip that first opened in 1946.
Despite the construction and renovations currently underway, the hotel still has a 96% occupancy rate in Q4 2024, which is further evidence that some of the best deals are those that are never consummated. But when Caesars CEO Tom Reeg was asked if the company was looking at buying or selling any assets, he was quite candid. “Yes… you’d heard me say many times, we’re a public company; everything’s for sale every day. No M&A is an easy lift, but the easiest lift, non-core assets, were printed in 2024,” Reeg stated.
Turning Assets Into Opportunity
Under Reeg’s stewardship, Caesars has not shied away from selling assets if the price is right. It was only a few months ago when the company trumpeted the sale of the Linq Promenade, a restaurant and entertainment district located in the heart of its Las Vegas Strip properties.
“Caesars Entertainment, Inc. today announced the closing of the previously announced sale of the Linq Promenade to a joint venture formed between TPG Real Estate and the Investment Management Platform of Acadia Realty Trust for $275 million. Concurrent with the closing of the transaction, Caesars made a $275 million voluntary prepayment of our Term Loan B due 2030 with the proceeds from the transaction,” said the company press release.
In October of last year, the company announced it had sold the intellectual property to its World Series of Poker (WSOP) brand to NSUS Group Inc. Caesars received $250 million in cash and a $250 million promissory note due five years after the transaction’s closing.
Yet, as part of the deal, Caesars retains the rights to “host the flagship WSOP live tournament series at its Las Vegas casinos for the next 20 years and will receive a license from NSUS to continue operating its recently upgraded WSOP Online real-money poker business in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for the foreseeable future…”
More Moves Ahead?
Although selling core assets like a Las Vegas Strip casino is a much more difficult deal to close, that doesn’t mean Reeg is averse to listening to all offers for those valuable assets and others that are not as celebrated. “We still own some assets that we would consider non-core, non-operating casinos, but have, for some, in some form or fashion, are harder to monetize quickly,” Reeg stated.
The Caesars Forum Convention Center in Las Vegas could also be a target acquisition from a competitor, but Reeg always picks up the phone, even if it is an asset he would prefer not to sell.
“We’re in active dialogue kind of around this stuff all the time. I would say since the fourth quarter, we’ve seen an increase in incoming calls in terms of somebody saying, Hey, what about this asset? What about that asset? I wouldn’t tell you that that’s transitioned into any particular trades that I think are imminent or even highly likely,” he said.
