It took more than two years, nearly $12 million in fees and a billionaire’s bargain-basement bid, but the Tropicana Casino and Resort has been salvaged by its sale to Carl Icahn.
The $200 million deal completed Monday marks the activist investor’s return to Atlantic City, and ends one of the most tortured casino sales in U.S. history.
Icahn bought the casino out of bankruptcy for 80 percent less than what it was expected to fetch before the recession hit.
New Jersey regulators stripped the Tropicana’s former owners of their license in December 2007, citing less than a year of poor performance including 1,000 layoffs that left the gambling hall dirty and understaffed.
The license denial led to nearly two years of false starts and dead-ends in the effort to attract a buyer. When a deal to sell the Tropicana to Baltimore-based Cordish Co. fell through, the former owner of the Sands Casino Hotel stepped in.
In January, Icahn received approval to take control of nine Tropicana Entertainment casinos in Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi as they emerged from a separate bankruptcy.
And last December, Icahn bought the first-lien debt in Trump Entertainment Resorts’ three Atlantic City casinos. Now, he and banker Andy Beal are battling a group that includes Donald Trump to become the owners when that company emerges from bankruptcy.
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