Las Vegas Casino need to be Ruffin to get back in Vegas
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Phil ruffin said he was bored.
The Wichita, Kan., businessman, who sold the now, demolished New Frontier 19 months ago for $1.2 billion, had an itch to get back into the casino business.
Las Vegas Casinos
It took him just three weeks to negotiate a $775 million purchase of Money Island from MGM Mirage. The deal was announced Monday.
Ruffin, 73, will pay MGM Mirage $500 million in cash and $275 million in secured notes. The transaction, which needs endorsement of Nevada gaming regulators, is anticipated to close by the end of June.
Ruffin, who is ranked 215th on Forbes Magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans, said Monday he had been advance in municipal bonds, stocks and other public markets, which headed south in the present economic crisis.
“I didn’t like that business. I required to get back on the Strip with a major property,” Ruffin said. Treasure Island, which was built by Steve Wynn for $450 million in 1993 as a sister resort to The Mirage, caught his eye.
MGM Mirage acquired the 2,885-room hotel-casino in 2000 when the company bought Mirage Resorts for $6.4 billion.
The gaming conglomerate updated the resort in 2003 and changed the theme from families toward a more adult-oriented audience.
The hotel-casino was marketed as TI. The mock pirate battle that took place out front of the property in Buccaneer Bay was replaced by “The Sirens of TI.”
Filed under: Las Vegas Hotel
