Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Caesars Entertainment Corporation (formerly Harrah's Entertainment from 1995 to 2010) is a private gaming corporation that owns and operates over 50 casinos, hotels, and seven golf courses under several brands. The company, based in Paradise, Nevada, is the largest gaming company in the world, with yearly revenues $8.9 billion (2010). Caesars is owned by Hamlet Holdings, a joint venture of Apollo Global Management and Texas Pacific Group, with Blackstone Group holding a minority stake.^[1][2]

The name change from "Harrah's Entertainment Inc." to "Caesars Entertainment Corporation" was made official on November 23, 2010. Harrah's will remain a key brand in the newly named company. On November 5, 2010, Harrah's announced an initial public offering of 31,250,000 shares but retracted this offering on November 19.

History

William F. Harrah era (1937–1978)

The company known as Harrah's Entertainment was founded on October 30, 1937 as a small bingo parlor in Reno, Nevada operated by William F. Harrah.^[3][4] The company went public in 1971 with 450,000 shares. Following that, in 1972, it was listed on the American Stock Exchange and in 1973 Harrah's became the first casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Company founder William F. Harrah died in 1978.

Post William F. Harrah era

Under Holiday Inn

• February 1980 – Holiday Inns, Inc. acquires Harrah's, Inc. who operated two hotel casinos in Reno and Lake Tahoe, the auto collection in Reno and private residences. The auto collection was the largest in the world, a frequent source of vehicles for Hollywood movie producers and a major tourism draw to the city of Reno. Liquidation of the assets in that collection, including almost 7,000 antique automobiles, reportedly returned the full purchase price of both hotels and casinos to Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn at the time had 1,600 hotels and interests in two casinos, a casino under construction in the marina district in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and a 40 percent ownership interest in River Boat Casino, Inc., a casino adjacent to the Holiday Inn hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.^[4][5] In November, Harrah's Marina opens.^[4]

• July 1987 – Bill's Casino opens.^[4]

• August 1988 – Harrah's Laughlin opens.^[4]

Operating as The Promus Companies

• January 1990 – Bass PLC acquires the Holiday Inn hotel business and The Promus Companies is created to retain the remaining assets and brands.^[4] Promus stock began trading a month later (NYSE:PRI).

• 1991 – Company headquarters is moved from Reno, Nevada to Memphis, Tennessee^[5]

• April 1992 – The company acquires its first Las Vegas property as Holiday Las Vegas is converted to a Harrah's casino.^[4]

• May 1993 – Harrah's Joliet opens;^[4]

• November 1993 - Harrah's Vicksburg in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Harrah's Tunica open.^[4]

• April 1994 – Harrah's Shreveport opens.^[4]

• December 1994 Harrah's Phoenix Ak-Chin opens. This is opened under a management contract with the Ak-Chin Indian Community.

Renamed as Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.

• June 1995 – The company is renamed to Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. following the split off of the Promus hotel brands (Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, and Homewood Suites).^[4]

• March 1997 – Harrah's St. Louis-Riverport opens; May sees the consolidate of two Mississippi properties into the new Tunica Mardi Gras; September: Total Gold is launched; October: Harrah's completes $200 million expansion to Las Vegas; November: Harrah's Cherokee Smoky Mountains opens.^[4]

• January 1998 – Harrah's Prairie Band opens.

• June 1998 – the company acquires Showboat, Inc. including the Showboat Casino, Atlantic City and renames one property to Harrah's East Chicago. The company later sold the Showboat Hotel & Casino and the Sydney Showboat.^[4]

• May 1998 – Gary Loveman joins the organization as Chief Operating Officer.

• January 1, 1999 – Harrah's closed the purchase of the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino and Rio Secco Golf course for $888 million giving the company 2 casinos in Las Vegas.^[6] Later that year, the company moved its headquarters from Memphis, Tennessee to Las Vegas.^[6]

• June 2003 – the Harrah's casino in Vicksburg, Mississippi is sold.

• March 2004 – Harrah's briefly purchased their 3rd Vegas Casino, Binion's Horseshoe, but immediately sold it on March 11, 2004, to MTR Gaming Group retaining the valuable rights to the Horsehoe brand and the World Series of Poker. Later in 2004, Harrah's closed on the purchase of Horseshoe Gaming Holding Corporation.

Purchase of Caesars Entertainment

• June 13, 2005 – Harrah's completed the takeover of Caesars Entertainment. While the companies were not required to divest any properties, they did sell several properties before the merger was completed. This merger made Harrah's the largest gambling company with over 4 million square feet (370,000 m²) of casinos, almost 100,000 employees and over 40 casinos.^[4] Later that month, the company announced that they would consolidate all their brand names under the Harrah's, Rio, Caesars, and Horseshoe brands. The company also took ownership of the Caesars Palace at Sea operations on Crystal Cruises ships.^[7] Some standalone names, like Paris Las Vegas are likely to be retained. The rebranding of the two remaining Bally's properties in the company is scheduled, but a specific time line has not been disclosed. This acquisition takes the number of casinos owned by Harrah's in Las Vegas from 2 to 6.

• September 2005 – Harrah's Pride of Lake Charles was severely damaged by Hurricane Rita. One riverboat was pushed completely onshore. All of the restaurants and support buildings were destroyed. Harrah's closed its Lake Charles operations shortly thereafter.

• November 29, 2005 – Harrah's Entertainment announced plans to sell the Flamingo Laughlin to AREP Boardwalk Properties LLC. The $170 million sale closed on May 19, 2006. As a condition of the sale, the property is to be renamed the Aquarius within 6 months.

• December 2005 - Harrah’s acquires the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $370 million. The Imperial Palace occupies an 18.5-acre (7.5 ha) site directly between Harrah’s Las Vegas and the Flamingo. A year later the company announced that they intended to implode the IP, but later that decision is rescinded. This acquisition takes the number of casinos owned by Harrah's in Las Vegas from 6 to 7.

• December 12, 2005 – the Grand Casino Gulfport sale was announced for an undisclosed amount to Gulfside Casino Partnership. Gulfside is the owner of the Copa Casino, next to the Grand Casino. The Grand Casino Biloxi is to be rebuilt from scratch as Margaritaville Casino and Resort.

• April 23, 2006 – a scavenger hunt style promotion called "Treasure Hunt" ended when an accident seriously hurt one employee and tourist, and killed one tourist. The accident happened when a robbery suspect fleeing police hit a mini-van carrying the Harrah's employee and tourists.

• May 26, 2006 – in Las Vegas, NV, Harrah's acquired a 19.6-acre (7.9 ha) site behind, but not adjacent to the Imperial Palace with frontage on Koval Road. The cost for the land was $164.4 million. The site is currently occupied by the Desert Club Apartments.

Company goes private

• October 2, 2006 – The Wall Street Journal reported that private-equity firms would buy Harrah's Entertainment for $15.05 billion in one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history. A number of private-equity firms, including Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Global Management were involved in the talks. The company also announced plans to trade 24 acres (9.7 ha) on the Las Vegas Strip for the Barbary Coast Hotel and Casino. Following approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), state gaming commissions and by shareholders, the stock (NYSE HET) was delisted on January 28, 2008 and the company was taken private by Hamlet Holdings.^[1]

• December 2006 – Harrah's acquired London Clubs International for $568 million. Harrah's announced Casino Windsor would be renamed as Caesars Windsor and would receive multiple upgrades to the physical premises.^[8]

• February 2007 - Barbary Coast (the 7th casino in Las Vegas) is acquired in a land swap with Boyd Gaming and is renamed Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon, named after company founder Bill Harrah. The new casino is very small, but provides another piece of contiguous land for future development in Las Vegas.

• November 2007 - Harrah's acquired the Orient Golf Club on the Cotai Strip in Macau for approximately US$580M. The land area is roughly 180 acres (0.73 km²).

• January 2008 - Harrah's assumes $20 billion in debt when private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Texas Pacific Group acquired the company.

• April 9, 2008 – Harrah's Entertainment's board of directors approved a corporate name change to Caesars Entertainment Corporation. This change will capitalize on the international name recognition enjoyed on the Caesars name brand. The Harrah's brand remains one of the company's three primary casino brands.^[9]

• December 1, 2009 - Harrah's filed applications with Nevada gaming regulators seeking approval to acquire the Planet Hollywood Casino which is next to their Las Vegas properties. This acquisition will be their 8th casino in Las Vegas.^[10] Harrah's assembled all of its existing Las Vegas properties, by purchasing existing resorts beginning in April 1992. It was widely announced in previous years that the company planned to implode properties and build new ones from scratch, but after the market downturn the company conceded that it had little experience in building major resorts. Instead it developed Project Link in 2009, which calls for retaining and improving all existing buildings while adding a collection of about 20 restaurants and bars to be built along a winding corridor between the company's O'Sheas and Flamingo casinos, on the east side of the Strip. It is an attempt to create the kind of entertainment district that has developed organically in cities such as Los Angeles, Memphis and New Orleans yet is lacking on the Strip, with its enclosed, casino-centric zones.^[11] If this new zone is successful it will provide competition for the Fremont Street Experience.

The acquisition of Planet Hollywood will provide Harrah's with a contiguous 126-acre (0.51 km²) property bordering the strip. The vacant lots behind the casinos had been slated for a sports arena large enough to hold a professional basketball or hockey team. The three casinos will have over 8000 rooms which can be directly connected to the arena.

• February 19, 2010, Harrah's Entertainment^[12] acquires Planet Hollywood Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.

• It was announced in August 2010 that Harrah's will run casinos in Cincinnati, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio when they open in 2012.

• October 19, 2010 Harrah's filed with the SEC to raise up to $575 million in an initial public offering. Harrah's will change it name to Caesars Entertainment after the long delayed announcement when it launches its IPO, Trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under CZR (which was the ticker symbol for Caesars Entertainment - which Harrah's bought in 2005).^[13]

• In November 2011, the company filed again with the SEC for an initial public offering trading as CZR.^[14]

Rename to Caesars Entertainment Corp.

• November 2010 plans for an IPO were canceled at least for now but a planned name change from Harrah's Entertainment Inc to Caesars Entertainment Corp did go forward as planned and was made official November 23, 2010.

Properties

Book

In 2010, Chronicle Books published Harrah's Entertainment Presents...The Seven Stars Cookbook: Recipes from World-Class Casino Restaurants by John Schlimm. The coffee table-sized cookbook contains more than 125 recipes from Harrah's Entertainment chefs as well as photographs by Frankie Frankeny.

See also

• Total Rewards
• World Series of Poker- Buyout through Binion Horseshoe acquisition.

References

Further reading

Shook, Robert L. (2003). Jackpot. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26323-0 

External links

• Caesars homepage (used as a source for some information)
• Total Rewards Card