A Change of Tune, updating the music

Carl Loeser, curator of the pipe organs in Boardwalk Hall, inspects the newly restored, 80-year-old Kimball organ.

There is a rule that is common to everyone, to sports, business and even our personal lives; when things start to go bad it is time to make some changes; you know fire the coach, shakeup the lineup, add a new product to your product line or maybe just quite your job, sell everything and move to a new town – an update or a tune up, we all need one once in a while.  In Atlantic City they are tuning up some old organs for Lady Gaga, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen to play and breath some new life into things, last week the city changed the signs on the boardwalk to something more modern and updated.  Trump Entertainment is tuning up the company with a new CEO Robert Griffin, who sold everything he had at MTR to move to Atlantic City.  No one said Griffin was an update of the former CEO Mark Juliano, but the press release did hint that Juliano was dated.

Across the country, Carl Ichan is selling all of the furniture of Fontainebleau Las Vegas – an unfinished mega-resort he bought in January for $131 million and just across the Strip, MGM announced it would be selling some of its assets, stating quite clearly: “We have too much debt,” said Murren. “Job 1 is to reduce the debt.”  MGM did not say exactly which assets, except Borgata in Atlantic City, it would sell.  MGM said earlier in the year it was willing to forfeit Borgata and Atlantic City rather than lose out on an opportunity to do business with Pansy Ho in Macau – and speaking of Macau, MGM also announced it was preparing for an IPO in Hong Kong to finance business in Macau; now doesn’t that sound like someone selling everything and moving out of town?  Icahn isn’t leaving for Vegas, he is going to wait for a better time to build – no one is quite sure when that will be, but apparently he thinks the furniture will be outdated by then.

All of that might indicate a slow news day, if not for MGM restructuring and looking toward Asia, that is beginning to sound like a serious change in direction from the days when the company was buying all of the gaming company it could get – Mirage, Circus Circus and Primm for example, while expanding into Detroit, Atlantic City and Mississippi.  It will be very interesting to see which assets it sells.  Along with news of the new international hotel division MGM is promising to develop, it appears MGM is going to a very different company in a couple of years.  I wonder what role 90 year-old Kirk Kerkorian is planning for himself in this new future?

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