Rumor: Cosmopolitan Being Bought by MGM Resorts...

According to Robin Leach, Cosmo is about to be sold to MGM Resorts. Interesting...

http://robinleach.reviewjournal.com/article/wicked-whispers-racy-rumors-mgm-resorts-to-buy-the-cosmopolitan/

 

Ughhhhhhhh....hope it isn't true!

 

Now everyone's going to know about Secret Pizza!

RICHARD

 

Makes sense that they would want it since it's sandwiched in their properties along that side of the strip.

 

say it ain't so.

 

"Wicked whispers" "racy rumors" is name of article

 

At some point Blackstone is going to want to cash in on their investment. Their purchase was always just an asset speculation, they're not long-term participants in the casino/hotel business. As beautiful and impressive as the property is, it's not been hugely profitable for BX. But maybe MGM thinks it will be a worth a slight overpay to fill that hole between Bellagio and City Center, and Blackstone can make a decent capital gain for having held the property for only three years. And everyone goes away happy...

...except maybe us customers. Kind of worried about what MGM would do to the property, though. It's so well run right now that it can only go downhill.

 

I was thinking the other day; if we think of MGM in the sense of their a huge media company (movies and stuff) and not as the owners of half of the strip - how long until some of the tech "media" companies - Netflix, Amazon, Google? get into the casino game

Could you imagine walking into a casino with Google Ads every where? A google home in every room, controlling lights, booking shows, dinner reservations?
Netflix resort with House of Cards slot machines ? (that might be cool)
Amazon resort and have sun screen orderable from your room and delivered to it from the wearhouse underground? lol

 

I can't tell from your phrasing whether you know this or not, but there already are HoC slot machines. Last place I saw them was Excalibur, if I remember correctly.

 

I was just about to edit my post and say those are probably bad examples, but you know what I mean. Some of these tech companies are monolithic in how much cash they have. Look at how much gets blown on trying to figure out space travel, or self driving cars. Spending a billion dollars on buying or building a casino would be like buying instagram. Once they figure out how to track people walking through physical doors and market to them...

Many of them already hold yearly events in LV - AWS re:invent (by amazon) consumes 3 hotels - wynn, mirage and venetian for 1 week in december. (I'm trying to go to this one this year)

10, 20 years? the strip might look much different...

 

The big tech companies are used to net profit margins in the mid-20% range (and some way above that). They will never want to get involved in a extremely cyclical industry with net profit margins in the low to mid single digits. There's way more money to be made staying in their own wheelhouse.

 

I concur. There's a reason real estate value in Bay Area, CA is 10x what it is in Las Vegas, NV.

 

Oh please let this not be true! They can ruin their own places!

 

This rumor comes up every year. Since the current owners just want to cash out, of course they won't care what happens to Cosmo but we all know MGM will eff it up. I hope it doesn't happen.

 

Please let this not be true. I ADORE the Cosmo, everything about it is so unique and different from the rest of the strip. I'm a fan of some of the MGM resorts, but this would really diminish Cosmo's "singularity" to me. I have made a point to go into the Cosmo on every single trip I've taken to Vegas; usually it's my home base, even though I don't stay there much.

I would also imagine it would be put in the top tier of Mlife right away after acquisition too, meaning low-ish rollers like me would never sniff free rooms from the place. I have been concentrating my play at Cosmo trying to crack the upper levels of their very fair rewards program, to be dumped out of that back into the black hole of Mlife (which I just completely extricated myself from) would be crushing, even if they did convert Identity points to Mlife.

This would be a very sad day for me, really hoping the MGM execs doing the tour there just got lost.

 

As said... this rumor resurfaces from time to time. It might make sense if the numbers are right for MGM. Is this the time? No idea.

You can be sure that Blackstone will NOT do a fire sale. They are smart cookies.

 

This is true, especially considering the other alternatives if you want to operate a strip casino - the 'Bleu which is will cost as much to finish as it is to buy. The New Frontier lot is out there too but now that I think of it, not actually up for sale.

 

HERES A QUOTE FROM DAVE MCKEE'S BLOG @LVA
"At the risk of burying the lead, Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank speculates that says CityCenter could be for sale. Let him tell you himself: “Most believe there to be the potential for a deal involving City Center, or aspects of City Center, though it doesn’t appear to be driving the incremental investment dollar.” What do you make of that?"

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/crystals-mall-at-citycenter-reportedly-sold-for-1-13-billion/
I don't think so. May be just the reverse.

 

Truly hope this isn't so. There is a reason why we do stay at the Cosmo. Only alternatives would be Wynn/Encore, Venetian/Palazzo.....or stay off strip at Orleans or Main Street/California.