Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc

A group of private investors has agreed to buy hotel-casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. for $211.5 million, with an eye on the company's Las Vegas Strip property, the company said Thursday. The investment group, Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc., will pay $17 a share. Shares of Las Vegas-based Riviera rose 80 cents Thursday to $18.94.

A group of private investors has agreed to buy hotel-casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. for $211.5 million, with an eye on the company's Las Vegas Strip property, the company said Thursday. The investment group, Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc., will pay $17 a share. Shares of Las Vegas-based Riviera rose 80 cents Thursday to $18.94.

Riviera Holdings Corp., owner of casinos in Nevada and Colorado, said its shareholders had voted down a $211-million buyout offer from Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc. The $17-a-share proposal required 60% of shares voted in favor to be approved, Riviera said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's flagship property is Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

A big investor in Riviera Holdings Corp. said it would vote against a buyout of the casino operator for $17 a share. Riviera agreed last week to be bought by Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc., a private investment group, for about $211.5 million in cash. Riv Acquisition also agreed to assume or repay $215 million in the casino company's debt. D.E. Shaw Group, which holds about 1.

A major shareholder of casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. said that an offer to buy the company for $17 a share was too low and that it would vote against the deal. "We don't think this is the right price," said Marc Sole, senior vice president of New York investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co., whose group of affiliated firms holds a 9.9% stake in Las Vegas-based Riviera. "If this deal fails and if there's no other bid forthcoming, so be it," he said Wednesday. D.E.

Riviera Holdings Corp., owner of a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, received a $336.5-million buyout offer from a group of investors including Barry Sternlicht and Robert F.X. Sillerman. Sternlicht, founder of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., and Sillerman, owner of the "American Idol" television show and Elvis Presley's estate, offered $27 a share in cash, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday.