\nHoward Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/p>\n
\tCasino operator Full House Resorts said Monday the Las Vegas-based company has been \u201cevaluating strategic alternatives for several months\u201d and called a proxy fight by a group of shareholders \u201cinappropriate and disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe company said in a statement it was exploring options, such as \u201cpotential merger or sale of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe statement followed a proxy solicitation filed last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by a group of Full House shareholders. The group is led by former Pinnacle Entertainment CEO Dan Lee and is seeking a special stockholders meeting to remake the company\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n
\tFull House owns three casinos: one in Indiana, one in Mississippi and the Stockman\u2019s Casino in Fallon. The company also manages the Grand Lodge Casino at Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe under a lease agreement. In September, the company\u2019s management contract for an Indian casino in New Mexico ended.<\/p>\n
\tFull House said it would \u201cinform its stockholders of the result of its review of strategic alternatives at the appropriate time\u201d and asked its shareholders to not take any actions on the proxy filing.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe company also notes that many of the statements made by the dissident group are inaccurate or misleading,\u201d according to the statement.<\/p>\n
\tThe stockholder group owns 6.2 percent of the company\u2019s outstanding shares and wants to elect five new members to the company\u2019s board. The company has a current market capitalization of $24.9 million.<\/p>\n
\tLee said Full House \u201chas failed stockholders\u201d and went on \u201ca reckless buying binge, overpaying for three shrinking casinos and pursuing two hotel additions that have marginal returns.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tLee is a gaming industry veteran who also served as chief financial officer of Steve Wynn\u2019s Mirage Resorts.<\/p>\n
\tThe five shareholders include former Boyd Gaming Corp. Chief Financial Officer Ellis Landau, who is president of the holding company that owns the Aliante Casino in North Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tIn a letter to Full House shareholders, the group said the company\u2019s shares, which are traded on Nasdaq, fell almost 59 percent between September 2013 and September 2014.<\/p>\n
\tThe group criticized a failed attempt by Full House to purchase a Tunica, Miss., casino this year in which the company lost more than 97 percent of $1.75 million escrow account and spent $300,000 in professional fees associated with the transaction.<\/p>\n
\tFull House posted a series of talking points to the company\u2019s website, saying the casino operator has been proactive in addressing economic pressure by reducing costs at both its property and the corporate level. Full House said it withdrew its purchase of the Tunica casino because of declines in the Mississippi gaming market.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe company will pursue the strategy that is in the best interest of all stockholders, and encourages its stockholders not to support actions that enable the dissident group to take control of the company without providing a fully formed strategic plan to create value for stockholders of the company,\u201d Full House said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\tLee\u2019s group needs SEC approval to approach Full House stockholders. The proxy fight will need 40 percent approval from shareholders to schedule a vote.<\/p>\n
\tShares of Full House, traded on the Nasdaq, closed at $1.32 Monday, up 2 cents, or 1.54 percent.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howard Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal Casino operator Full House Resorts said Monday the Las Vegas-based company has been \u201cevaluating strategic alternatives for several months\u201d and called a proxy fight by a group of shareholders \u201cinappropriate and disruptive.\u201d The company said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}