Resorts World Las Vegas has taken two giant steps closer to its 2020 debut, borrowing $2.6 billion to complete construction of the 3,400-room hotel casino and hiring Strip veteran Scott Sibella to run it.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal said Sibella signed on April 4 as president and chief operating officer, the same positions he held for more than eight years at MGM Grand. He left the Grand in February, taking a buyout as part of a program under way at parent MGM Resorts International to cut $100 million in costs, in part by paring executive salaries.
Resorts World LV, a subsidiary of global resort conglomerate Genting, is scheduled to open in 2020 at the north Strip site of the old Stardust. The financing completed earlier this month indicates the project is well on the road to making that date.
Reuters reports that a $1 billion, 10-year bond was sold with a coupon of 4.625 percent along with a $1.6 billion senior secured credit facility. Barclays, Citigroup and JPMorgan were joint global coordinators for the bond issue, which Standard & Poor’s rated BBB+, an investment-grade ranking that is rare for gaming. Demand was strong, the report said. Orders from investors totaled $3.8 billion.
Construction of Resorts World suffered through a number of fits and starts after Genting bought the site in 2013 from Boyd Gaming, which had scrapped plans for a super-resort of its own there when the 2008-09 recession hit. Now, with most of the exterior structure visible, anticipation is steadily building for what will be the first new casino hotel to debut on the Strip since The Cosmopolitan almost 10 years ago. Plans call for an Asian-themed experience which in addition to a massive gaming floor will feature more than 25 food and beverage outlets, an array of retail, more than 200,000 square feet of spas, pools and fitness facilities, day and nightclubs and more than 300,000 square feet of meetings and conventions space. The cost at full build-out has been estimated at around $4 billion.
As for its management, Sibella is bringing a wealth of local know-how. A Las Vegas native and graduate of UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, he launched his career in Atlantic City with the Trump casinos before returning home as an executive at Treasure Island on the Strip, which MGM had acquired in the Mirage Resorts merger in 2000 and later sold to Kansas billionaire Phil Ruffin. Sibella stayed with MGM and moved to The Mirage as president and chief operating officer in 2007. He was named president and COO of the Grand in 2010.
