Wednesday, April 29, 2009

MGM Mirage halts trading

[UPDATE: I was out on assignment when the news finally came in, so here's the press release. Bottom line is MGM and Dubai World have worked out the financing and it's full-speed ahead for all aspects of CityCenter. And with Circus Circus put up as collateral, I guess it's less and less likely Steve Wynn will fulfill his life's goal of buying it.]

About 75 minutes ago, MGM Mirage stock stopped trading "pending news." Speculation is largely centered on the sale of some asset. Some seem to think it's the fruition of Wynn's alleged desire to buy Bellagio and, uh, Circus Circus, that sillyspeak that the R-J decided today was worth a banner headline. It would be shocking of Wynn, on the cusp of a real deal of any sort with MGM, commented at all yesterday let alone be so flippant as to toss out the ridiculous suggestion that he wants to own a hellhole.

As usual, we should take note of where the Las Vegas press is as this story unfolds. The Sun went up with a top headline 33 minutes after MGM halted trading at 12:11 p.m. PT.


The Review-Journal? It's now been more than an hour since the halt. Take a look:


They've posted "breaking news" bulletins on three other stories since 12:11 p.m. PT -- a shooting, a possible bank merger and passage of a bill in Carson City. But not a trace of the mysterious fate of the state's largest private employer.

Now, which site would YOU go to first for breaking news?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=101502&p=IROL-NewsText&t=Regular&id=1282241&

The completion of CityCenter funding. Nothing about asset sales.

SG

Anonymous said...

Don't presume that the reporter wasn't on the story but was denied permission to flash the update.

As backwards as that sounds, the writers on Bonanza are often hamstrung by the ineptitude of those who oversee them.

mike_ch said...

"which site would YOU go to first for breaking news? "

Probably LasVegasNow.com =b

Reading your blog has given me a distaste for both print organizations, though the RJ helps itself along just by reading some of the content.

THE STRIP PODCAST said...

SG: Thanks for posting that link. I was out on an assignment when the news finally came.

Anon1: I agree totally. Howard Stutz had a piece up on the site at 2:15, a mere 15ish minutes after the news came out. I'm well aware he's not responsible for what the cuckoos running that website do.

Mike: "the RJ helps itself along just by reading some of the content." I don't know what you're saying.

mike_ch said...

I'm saying that even if I never read your opinions, I would have disliked the RJ soon enough just by reading enough of it.

I caught some of the foolishness in the editorial pages over the years, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.