Trouble at Spring Mountain and Paradise … But is Seal Team Six really necessary to protect a casino boss with relationship problems?
It seems now wherever he goes, Steve Wynn has a team of bodyguards trailing behind him. And according to this article, Steve is supposedly drawing his protection from a pool of ex-Navy Seals.
The added security detail is coincident with his high-profile tiff with Wynn’s one-time partner Kazou Okada. After the two exchanged dueling lawsuits, Wynn forced Okada off the company’s board of directors and cashed him out of his Wynn stock holdings at a deep discount.
But if the situation did escalate from legal to physical, we feel Steve Wynn could do just fine without bodyguards. By all appearances, Wynn looks to have both the height and reach advantage on Okada.
They say it’s lonely at the top. That appears to be especially true for Wynn. The business publication Barron’s recently dropped Wynn from their annual list of top chief executives. Wynn’s wife Elaine divorced him — for the second time. Fallout from the divorce included the departure of Andrew Pascal, President of Wynn’s Las Vegas properties and Elaine’s nephew. And after more than a decade alliance, Wynn and Chef Alex Stratta severed ties last year.
Maybe Wynn hired a few buff bodyguards just for the company.
Investors received the latest financial news from the world’s largest casino companies last week. And while Dan was thinking standard SEC filings from Caesars were signs of impending online poker happiness, it was the unexpected word from MGM and Wynn that really had tongues wagging.
MGM: Documents Shredded and Shares Dumped
Back in the day, gambling establishments made their problems disappear somewhere out in the Nevada desert. Perhaps that’s where we’ll find MGM’s legal documents?
MGM has been embroiled in a years-long legal battle with City Center’s general contractor Perini Building Company. The case took a bizarre turn last week when MGM notified the court that a rogue warehouse manager sold more than 500 boxes of legal documents to a paper recycler for roughly $800.
Overall, it wasn’t a great news week for MGM. Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, continued to dump shares of the casino company he founded. He reportedly raked in $268 million for the 20 million shares he sold on February 27.
Wynn: Stock Halted after Premature/Erroneous Filing
The messy divorce between Wynn Resorts and one-time (?) partner Kazou Okada continues to be the fodder of many news stories. But that isn’t what temporarily halted the shares of Wynn from trading on the stock exchange on March 2.
Wynn filed a document with the SEC about getting the concession to build a new casino in Macau, the world’s hottest gaming territory. Wynn’s share price soared on the news. But minutes later, the SEC filing was pulled and shares were halted. Apparently Wynn jumped the gun on the announcement, failing to jump through one last legal hoop. Poker and investment maven Kid Dynamite goes Sherlock Holmes on Wynn’s premature 8-K ejaculation.
Shares of Wynn Resorts tumbled on January 12 when it came out that a Wynn director and major shareholder had filed a lawsuit against the casino company. Turns out Kazuo Okada, one of Steve Wynn’s original partners, is claiming the company made a questionable $135 million donation to the University of Macau and hasn’t been sharing its financial information with him. Reuters has a nice write-up here.
The veiled implication is Wynn’s sizable donation might have been less than philanthropic — bordering on a “pay to play” ante to retain favor in the world’s most lucrative gaming destination. (The competing Las Vegas Sands’ Macau operation is currently under DOJ and SEC scrutiny for possible infringement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as referenced here in a Wall Street Journal blog.)
Wynn claims Okada’s lawsuit is just a smoke screen to mask the fact that Okada had been working behind Wynn’s back to develop a casino in the Philippines. You can read all the tawdry details in A Partners’ Fight Erupts at Wynn.
How will it end? Perhaps better than Steve Wynn’s marriage. After all, Wynn recently told the press, “I love Kazuo Okada as much as any man that I’ve met in my life.”
Wynn shares have since recovered from the drama at the start of January, but still have a ways to go in 2012 before reaching 2011 highs.
