Sep 17, 2019

Blackstone Group in "advanced talks" to buy Bellagio and MGM Grand

The Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. Photo: George Rose/Getty Images

The Blackstone Group is in "advanced talks" to buy and lease back the Bellagio and MGM Grand Las Vegas hotels and casinos from MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM), per Bloomberg. No financial terms were disclosed, but an earlier Bloomberg report valued the combined properties at around $7 billion.

Why it matters: This would be Blackstone's largest bet on the Vegas strip, where it has a mixed history.

  • The firm paid around $1.7 billion for the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino in 2014, and reportedly considered shopping it earlier this year with a $4 billion asking price.
  • But it also was part of disastrous pre-crisis deal for Harrah's, which later became known as Caesars Entertainment.

Lotta chips: Blackstone recently closed the largest real-estate private equity fund of all time, with $20.5 billion in commitments.

The bottom line: "Property sales free up cash for casino companies to expand while letting them continue to manage their resorts," per Bloomberg.

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Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins; Map: Axios Visuals

New Zealand has only eight active novel coronavirus cases and no COVID-19 patients in hospital after another day of zero new infections. However, the death toll rose to 22.

Zoom in: A top health official told a briefing a 96-year-old woman "was regarded to having recovered from COVID-19 at the time of her death, and COVID-19 is not recorded as the primary cause of her death on her death certificate." But it was decided to include her in the overall tally of deaths related to the virus.

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Coronavirus dashboard

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  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 5,690,951 — Total deaths: 355,575 — Total recoveries — 2,350,071 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 10 p.m. ET: 1,699,073 — Total deaths: 100,396 — Total recoveries: 391,508 — Total tested: 15,192,481 — Map.
  3. Public health: CDC issues guidelines for reopening offices — Fauci says data is "really quite evident" against hydroxychloroquine.
  4. States: California hospitals strained by patients in Mexico — Texas Supreme Court blocks mail-in expansion to state voters.
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  7. World: EU proposes a massive pandemic rescue package.
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U.S. coronavirus updates

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins; Map: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios. This graphic includes "probable deaths" that New York City began reporting on April 14.

More than 100,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins — a milestone that puts the death toll far beyond some of the most tragic events in U.S. history.

By the numbers: Over 1.6 million have tested positive in the U.S. Nearly 354,000 Americans have recovered and over 15.1 million tests have been conducted. California became the fourth state with at least 100,000 reported cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, along with Illinois, New Jersey and New York.

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