Memphis investors plan to open casino resort at Mhoon Landing
As reported by The Memphis Business Journal

A new casino is headed to Tunica. When it gets there is another matter.

Solid Gold Casino Hotel and Resort has been proposed by Memphis businessman Robert Carpenter and his wife, Patricia Shaw. They have invested $6.5 million initially in the venture, which eventually will include the casino, dining barge, a hotel and an entertainment facility. The $6.5 million includes $2.5 million of their personal funds.

Carpenter, who was previously senior vice president of Guaranteed Mortgage Bank, and Shaw, who has been with FedEx for 25 years, are in the final turn of a 10-year journey to make the casino a reality. The two are the sole owners of the proposed casino, but Carpenter says they are meeting with two additional investors for the planned hotel.

Solid Gold has acquired two barges from Harrah's, one for gaming and the other for dining, with plans for the hotel to be built soon.

Carpenter says that once the license is approved, a group of private investors has $23 million ready to invest in the project, but those funds will have to wait on the approval itself. Those investors would own 49% of the casino, while Shaw and Carpenter maintain ownership of 51%.

Shaw stands to be the first female casino owner in Mississippi and the second in the world. Shaw says the inspiration behind Solid Gold was simple -- no one has done it locally before.

"We decided to do it and we've spent the last 10 years working on the business plan and idea," she says. "We did it all ourselves. Once we made the decision to either build or buy, we decided to get the best on the market."

 

MGM Mirage Increases Offer for Mandalay

NEW YORK - Casino operator MGM Mirage on Monday said it raised its offer to buy Mandalay Resort Group to $71 a share from $68 a share, hoping to seal a deal that would build the world's largest casino empire.

The offer, which includes $600 million in convertible debentures and the assumption of about $2.5 billion in debt in addition to the $71 a share in cash, would immediately add to earnings per share, MGM said.

Mandalay on Friday had rejected MGM's $68 a share offer. The prior offer had also included the assumption of $2.8 billion in debt. In rejecting the bid, Mandalay had said MGM wanted it to shoulder the risk that regulators would not approve the deal.

A deal would combine MGM's high-end Las Vegas casinos like Bellagio and MGM Grand with lower-tier Mandalay holdings such as Excalibur and Luxor. It would create a company that would play in every sector of the gambling market, a dominance that might require divestitures to convince regulators to pass the deal.

A deal between MGM Mirage and Mandalay would create a formidable presence that would control nearly 50 percent of the hotel market on the Las Vegas Strip and about one-third of its casinos.

Both companies said their boards would meet on June 15 to consider the offer.