(For background on Carl Icahn's hotel and casino investments, see this month's Deal Spotlight section of Distressed Assets Investor.)

LAS VEGAS-Carl Icahn is poised to take control of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the stalled casino hotel development on the Las Vegas Strip, reports the Wall Street Journal.

A subsidiary of Icahn's company, Icahn Enterprises LP, emerged as the only qualified bidder this week after two competing bids were deemed unqualified, an examiner appointed by the US Bankruptcy Court in Miami said in documents filed with the court, the WSJ says. Icahn has pledged $106 million for the project, plus $50 million in financing during bankruptcy proceedings.

Hotel consultant Sumner Baye, president and partner of International Hotel Network LLC, who has worked with Icahn many times in the past, tells GlobeSt.com that Icahn "certainly has a taste for the gaming industry."

Baye explains that Icahn's "past gaming investments have turned out very well for him" and that Icahn continues to be on the lookout for more gaming opportunities ahead.

One of the "past gaming investments" that Baye is referring to includes the Stratosphere, which Icahn sold for $1.3 billion to Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, an affiliate of Goldman, Sachs & Co. Icahn started investing in the Stratosphere in 1997 when he purchased $82 million of the property's $203 million in mortgage debt. Another gaming investment Baye mentioned in support of Icahn's "taste for the gaming industry" includes the Tropicana Atlantic City, which he, along with creditors, claimed ownership of in 2009 in exchange for $200 million worth of debt.

As GlobeSt.com previously reported, the deadline for submitting a qualified bid for the stalled $3-billion, 3,800-room Las Vegas Strip resort development was set at 5 p.m. PST on Friday, Jan. 15, 2010. The last bid supposedly topped Carl Icahn's $156.2-million "stalking horse" bid by at least $1 million.

Several hedge funds looked closely at the Fontainebleau in the past few weeks but ultimately decided not to bid, a person close to the situation told the WSJ. Penn National Gaming, a regional casino company, scouted the project for months but dropped out last week after determining that the market couldn't support the $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion the company believes it would take to finish the Fontainebleau.

In other Icahn news, as GlobeSt.com recently reported, through Icahn Partners LP and certain affiliates, the billionaire investor acquired 51% of the first-lien debt owed by Trump Entertainment Resorts to Beal Bank for $229 million in cash and has the option to purchase the rest for around $220 million, according to papers filed on Dec. 11 with the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey in Camden. The deal was part of a bankruptcy reorganization plan Icahn negotiated to help the troubled casino company emerge from Chapter 11.

To read the complete Wall Street Journal article, online, click here.

For previous Fontainebleau stories written by GlobeSt.com, click on one of the following headlines:

GlobeSt.com will update this developing story as more facts emerge.

Instant Insights /

Carl Icahn Poised to Take Control of Fontainebleau

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