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| Largest ever gambling industry merger going ahead |
| 2004-07-17 |
| The giant US gambling concern Harrah's has signed a firm agreement to buy Caesars Entertainment for cash and shares. With Caesars' debt included the deal is worth over 7.5 billion euros. It is the largest ever merger in the gambling industry and comes just weeks after another proposed consolidation between MGM-Mirage and the Madalay Resort group. The new number one will have turnover of more than seven billion dollars, that is two billion more than MGM-Mandalay. The bigger operator will have around twice as many casinos as its rival and 50% more employees. The new company would dominate the two big gambling centres in the US Las Vegas in the West and Atlantic City in the East. But the merger has to be approved by three levels of regulators - Federal, state and local and that could take until next year. Those regulators might insist that Harrah's sell some of the casinos so that it is not too dominant in any one market. Investors were not too impressed and shares in both the companies fell after the intended merger was announced. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |