Keating & Associates LLC, a firm based out of New York has confirmed that it is interested in acquiring the Sands Bethlehem casino resort in Pennsylvania.
The company had earlier expressed interest in acquiring the former Revel Casino in Atlantic City which is currently owned by Glenn Straub.
Keating & Associates stated that it has launched an evaluation process for Sands Bethlehem which should take about 30 days to complete.
Once the evaluation process is completed, the company is expected to send out a letter of interest. Sands Bethlehem is owned by Las Vegas Sands Corp who opened the property in May 2009. The parent company has tried on two occasions to sell Sands Bethlehem but things have not worked out on both occasions.
Las Vegas Sands Corp has preferred to expand into international markets and not focus too much on its domestic market in the United States. This made good business sense for the company to sell Sands Bethlehem to rival casino operator MGM Resorts International which was looking to expand its presence domestically. Sands Corp was also concerned over the fact that Pennsylvania is looking to legalize online gambling which could hurt the revenues of Sands Bethlehem.
Sands Bethlehem had earlier announced an expansion program that would cost more than $50 million but the project was put on hold as talks emerged of a potential sale to MGM Resorts earlier this year. That deal did not go through and now Keating & Associates want to make an offer to see if it could succeed in acquiring Sands Bethlehem.
In a statement, Jeffery Keating, co-chairman of Keating and Associates said
The Sands is a wonderful property that we believe we can bring to the next level through programming and community activation. As a company, we would be honored to have a jewel of a property like the Sands in Bethlehem within our portfolio, which is why we have initiated our evaluation process
Sands Corp responded to the rumours of interest from Keating and Associates by stating that it had never heard of the firm and had so far not been contacted. Glenn Straub had also stated that he had not been contacted by Keating and had not entered into any discussions with the firm of a potential sale of the closed Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
About the Author
