Mississippi gaming regulators signed off on Eldorado Resorts $17.3 billion acquisition of Caesars Entertainment Thursday.
The merger will cover four casinos in the state. A fifth, Eldorado’s Lady Luck Casino Vicksburg, is in the process of being sold to Twin River Worldwide Holdings along with Isle of Capri Casino Kansas City in Missouri, for $230 million.
The deal requires approvals by regulatory agencies in 18 states and a sign-off by the Federal Trade Commission. Reno-based Eldorado’s management team will oversee the combined company.
The Mississippi Gaming Commission approval comes after regulators in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa, and Louisiana have given the go ahead to the merger, which will create a casino operator with roughly 60 properties in 18 states.
In addition to Lady Luck, Eldorado currently operates two Mississippi casinos, Trop Casino Greenville and Isle of Capri in Lula. Caesars has two casinos in Mississippi, Harrah’s Gulf Coast in Biloxi and the Horseshoe Tunica.
In a statement, Eldorado said it expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2020.
In November, Shareholders from Eldorado and Caesars overwhelmingly voted in favor of the gaming companies’ merger. 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. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgaming.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
