Colony Capital Inc

Colony Capital bid $41 a share for Tropicana casino operator Aztar Corp. on Thursday, topping an earlier offer by Pinnacle Entertainment Corp. Colony, owner of the Raffles hotel group and the Las Vegas and Atlantic City Hilton hotel-casinos, made the offer in a letter to Aztar's board, spokesman Alan Marcus said. On March 13, Pinnacle offered $38 a share, or $1.45 billion, and agreed to assume $723 million in debt.

Colony Capital, a Century City-based real estate investor, offered to buy control of Tokyo's 114-year-old Imperial Hotel, the onetime address of choice in the Japanese capital for Bob Hope, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. The $9-billion fund is negotiating with UFJ Holdings Inc., the main lender to Kokusai Kogyo Co., to buy the hotel and transportation company's 39.4% stake in Imperial Hotel Ltd., said Toshio Masui, the president of Colony's Japanese operation.

Los Angeles investment firm Colony Capital is in negotiations to buy the Atlantic City Hilton and three other casinos owned by Harrah's Entertainment Inc. and Caesars Entertainment Inc. for more than $1 billion, according to people close to the deal. An Aug. 27 letter signed by the two gambling companies essentially gives Colony Capital, which owns the Las Vegas Hilton, the exclusive right to bid for the four casinos.

Casino owner and card club operator Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. on Monday agreed to be acquired by the parent of Harveys Casino Resorts in a $675-million stock deal, completing negotiations that began last month. The agreement caps nearly a year of deal-making in which Glendale-based Pinnacle, formerly Hollywood Park Inc., sold or agreed to sell its thoroughbred horse-racing tracks in Los Angeles and Arizona, as well as two Mississippi casinos, to focus on core gambling operations.

Kennedy-Wilson Inc. said it bought $250 million of nonperforming Japanese property loans for less than 10 cents on the dollar as it continues to scour the country for real estate bargains. The purchase brings to more than $1 billion the face value of Japanese loans that the Beverly Hills-based property management and investment firm has bought in the last 12 months. Japanese banks are writing off delinquent real estate loans made in the late 1980s.

Santa Monica-based real estate marketing company Kennedy-Wilson Inc. has completed its acquisition of major property management firm Heitman Properties Ltd. from Chicago real estate investment giant Heitman Financial Ltd. The merging of the Beverly Hills-based Heitman Properties operation into Kennedy-Wilson's smaller property management group creates Kennedy-Wilson Properties Ltd.

Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. shares fell 28% after the company said Thursday that its $1.28-billion sale to rival gaming company Harveys Casino Resorts is being delayed because of turmoil in the debt markets. Pinnacle shares fell $6.06 to close at $15.31 on the New York Stock Exchange, after trading as low as $14.25. The companies, in separate statements released by PRNewswire, said the purchase isn't terminated, though there can be no assurance a transaction will be completed.

Just when it looked like Santa Anita Cos. was about to trot into the stables of an investor group that includes Newport Beach real estate mogul Donald Koll and financier Leon Black, it's become a horse race again: Santa Anita Cos. announced Thursday that it has received other proposals.

A Japanese company is seeking to sell the Hotel Bel-Air in West Los Angeles, acquired for more than $100 million in the late 1980s during a Japanese buying spree of well-known American properties, a financier said here Thursday. If the sale goes through, it would mark the latest Japanese retreat from spectacular real estate purchases made in those years. The Japanese tycoon who bought the Pebble Beach golf resort in 1990 was thought to have lost $340 million when he sold it in 1992.