Maryland gaming regulators approved Eldorado Resorts’ $17.3 billion acquisition of Caesars Entertainment Thursday.
Caesars operates the Horseshoe Casino Baltimore in a joint venture with Detroit-based Jack Entertainment. The property is one of six casinos in Maryland.
On Wednesday, Eldorado CEO Thomas Reeg told investors and analysts, “we can see the finish line from here,” saying the transaction that was announced last June would close in the first half of the year.
The Maryland State Lottery & Gaming Control Agency became the seventh state regulatory body to sign off on the transaction, which needs approval from more than a dozen other states and the Federal Trade Commission.
“If I was making a bet, I would say early second quarter (for the transaction to close),” Reeg said Wednesday.
Horseshoe Casino Baltimore is Maryland’s second largest property with a 122,000-square-foot gaming floor. The facility opened in 2014 at a cost of $442 million. It is located near Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area and neighbors both M&T Bank Stadium, home to the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, and Camden Yards, home of baseball’s Baltimore Orioles.
The Eldorado-Caesars merger has been approved by shareholders of both companies.
Eldorado’s executive team will assume management of the combined company, which will retain the Caesars Entertainment name. Reeg said several Eldorado properties could be rebranded as Horseshoe or Harrah’s properties, names that are currently controlled by Caesars.
#exclusive – Maryland gaming regulators approve $17.3B Eldorado-Caesars merger. –@howardstutz, CDC Gaming Reports. https://t.co/mIRsjEkp05 @CaesarsEnt @ElDoradoResorts #CDCgaming
— CDC Gaming Reports (@CDCNewswire) February 27, 2020
Under terms of the agreement, Eldorado will pay $8.40 per share in cash and 0.0899 shares of Eldorado stock for each Caesars share, or $12.75 per share. The combined business will be called Caesars and its shares will be traded on the Nasdaq.
Eldorado is providing six of its current board members to the combined company: Chairman Gary Carano, Reeg – who will be CEO of the new company – David Tomick, Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., Michael Pegram and Bonnie Biumi.
Current Caesars directors Keith Cozza, Jan Jones Blackhurst, Don Kornstein, Courtney Mather and James Nelson will be part of the new board. Cozza, Mather and Nelson were appointed to the Caesars board in 2019 by corporate raider Carl Icahn, who controls more than 17 percent of Caesars.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgaming.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
