Golden Nugget Inc

The Nevada Gaming Commission on Tuesday approved the sale of the Golden Nugget casinos to Landry's Restaurants Inc., marking the dining company's first foray into the highly competitive gambling industry. With the commission's OK, the Houston-based firm completed the deal Tuesday to take over the Golden Nugget properties in downtown Las Vegas and Laughlin, Nev. Landry's paid $140 million and assumed $155 million in debt for the hotel-casinos in a transaction that was announced in February.

Landry's Restaurants Inc., whose operations include Rainforest Cafe and the Crab House, is buying the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas, a first step in a strategy to get a slice of the lucrative gambling business and expand its profit pipeline. Landry's shares rose 13% on the news. Houston-based Landry's announced Friday that it struck a deal with Poster Financial Group Inc.

Boxing promoter Don King, slapped with a lawsuit Wednesday by heavyweight champion Buster Douglas and the Mirage Hotel, responded in kind Thursday. King, in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in New York against Douglas and the Mirage, seeks several million dollars in damages and an injunction to prevent Douglas from fighting anyone without King as promoter.

Golden Nugget Inc., the hotel and casino operator, said today that it is seeking to acquire Hilton Hotels Corp. in a deal worth an estimated $1.95 billion. In separate announcements, Las Vegas-based Golden Nugget said it will make the takeover bid and Barron Hilton, chairman of Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels, rejected the proposal as inadequate. Golden Nugget said it is initially seeking to buy 6.78 million shares of Hilton stock from the estate of Conrad N.

Stephen A. Wynn, chief executive of Golden Nugget Inc., told stockholders Thursday that, despite past reverses, his company has not given up its interest in acquiring a controlling block of Hilton Hotels Corp. stock. Wynn told the meeting in the ballroom of its hotel-casino here that "we have an abiding, ongoing interest in that block of stock." However, he noted that there is little Golden Nugget can do until the Los Angeles County Superior Court makes some decisions about the 27.

In the fall of 1984, MCA Inc. was caught in the swirls and eddies of a stock market that sent share prices zooming at the slightest hint of a hostile takeover bid--or dealt them a punishing blow as soon as an apparent threat had passed. MCA stock had shot up 34% that summer as word circulated that Golden Nugget Inc., a Las Vegas gaming concern, owned just under 5% of the entertainment giant and might be poised for a takeover attempt with backing from Drexel Burnham Lambert.

When Steve Wynn first visited here in 1952, sharing his father's dream of a flashy bingo parlor on a patch of desert called the Strip, $5 million could have bought the clump of casinos that captivated the 10-year-old. Today, Wynn is spending more than a hundred times that amount on a desert paradise that staggers even his immense imagination--a new Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Golden Nugget Inc., which operates hotels and casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J., made a bid Wednesday to buy about one-fourth of Hilton Hotels Corp. and said it may try to take over the Beverly Hills-based company in a transaction that could be worth as much as $1.8 billion. In a letter to James E. Bates, executor of the estate of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad N. Hilton, Golden Nugget offered to buy up to 6.78 million shares, or 27.

MGM Mirage is leaving Las Vegas -- at least downtown. In another sign of the fading fortunes of the gambling capital's urban core, the casino-resort operator said Thursday that it would sell the famed Golden Nugget Las Vegas hotel and casino along with another Nevada property to a pair of former Internet entrepreneurs for $215 million in cash. Once the sale to Las Vegas-based investment firm Poster Financial Group Inc.

In the fall of 1984, MCA Inc. was caught in the swirls and eddies of a stock market that sent share prices zooming at the slightest hint of a hostile takeover bid--or dealt them a punishing blow as soon as an apparent threat had passed. MCA stock had shot up 34% that summer as word circulated that Golden Nugget Inc., a Las Vegas gaming concern, owned just under 5% of the entertainment giant and might be poised for a takeover attempt with backing from Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Boxing promoter Don King, slapped with a lawsuit Wednesday by heavyweight champion Buster Douglas and the Mirage Hotel, responded in kind Thursday. King, in a suit filed in U.S. District Court in New York against Douglas and the Mirage, seeks several million dollars in damages and an injunction to prevent Douglas from fighting anyone without King as promoter.

This town has had its share of notable events in its colorful history, dating back to 1830 when it was discovered by a Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera who stopped here because he found abundant supplies of spring water beneath the desert floor. In 1931, the city witnessed the arrival of neon signs--the first of many--and in 1967 was jolted by an unprecedented shopping spree during which mysterious financier Howard Hughes acquired four casinos.

Golden Nugget's stock price hit a 52-week high Thursday after flamboyant financier Donald Trump was quoted as disclosing that he has acquired 4.9% of its stock and that he might seek to buy the Las Vegas casino operator. A number of Wall Street analysts pooh-poohed the idea that Trump has any serious intentions of acquiring Golden Nugget, even though its stock jumped $1.625 a share to close at $13.50 on the New York Stock Exchange. No Golden Nugget executive was available for comment.

When Steve Wynn first visited here in 1952, sharing his father's dream of a flashy bingo parlor on a patch of desert called the Strip, $5 million could have bought the clump of casinos that captivated the 10-year-old. Today, Wynn is spending more than a hundred times that amount on a desert paradise that staggers even his immense imagination--a new Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.