Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
Audio – Everybody loves a winner in Vegas, baby!
It seems that any sentence about Las Vegas, the people who work there or the stocks of the companies that run the big casinos ends better with the word “baby”. It’s almost like you can hear Frank saying it to Dino on their way into some smoky, after-hours cocktail party.
So, even though Bill Lerner, casino and gaming analyst at Deutsche Bank didn’t exactly end his comments on casino stock picks like Sinatra might have … well, it’s Vegas, baby!
Lerner, speaking at the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in New York, spoke extensively about the stocks in the gaming sector and identified the ones he thinks have the best chance at near- and longer-term success.
Lerner was one of the featured speakers at the summit, which continues through Wednesday in our New York headquarters. The Summit program is in its fifth year, and in 2009 will include top-level executives from industries and sectors including everything from Infrastructure; to Mining; to Investing in India, China, Japan and Russia; to Food and Beverages.
Audio – Las Vegas mogul defends fun city
By Tim Hepher
Las Vegas casino legend Sheldon Adelson launched a quest for America’s most boring city on Tuesday in a comeback to President Barack Obama’s criticism of bankers who hold meetings in the famous gaming capital. Obama last month warned companies that get bailout cash against spending it on activities potentially seen as perks — sparking a row with hotel and resort operators who say they are already struggling to fill rooms and may have to cut jobs. “The good news is that Las Vegas has become a synonym for a good time for adults. Let me not say adults, I’ll say grown-ups, I don’t want to give the wrong impression,” Adelson, majority owner of casino operator Las Vegas Sands, said. “The bad news is that because it is a place for a good time, President Obama says that he doesn’t want taxpayer’s money to go there,” Adelson told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit. “But I’m going to conduct a survey and I’m going to provide a prize for people who will submit the name of the worst city in the country to go to, where people can enjoy it the least. Because that’s the alternative. The alternative is you go to a place where you enjoy, or you go to to a place you don’t enjoy.” The self-made billionaire, who tore down the original Sands to build the Venetian Resort complete with canals, and brought business conventions to Las Vegas, declined to nominate places for his ‘dive prize’ but took a swipe at Obama’s home town. “Look, Chicago has got nine casinos. Now, God forbid if they hold a convention there someone should go to one of those casinos and enjoy themselves. God forbid. And then they’d say ‘Oh I can’t go there’,” he said.
A scandal over perks erupted in October after insurer AIG flew top brokers and executives to a Southern California resort at a cost of $440,000 shortly after it received an $85 billion government bailout. “You can’t take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime,” Obama commented last month.
Quintin shows about as much grasp of the current problems as our current president has and showed by his choice of words in slamming a company and thereby a major US city and it’s employers, citizens, and government. If you want to talk about waste of the taxpayers money just let the congress look in the mirror and Queen Nancy is a perfect example of the arrogance of the federal government.
This started long before Obama, with the congress and federal agencies putting pressure to provide credit to those that could not handle or afford it. The outcome is simply the result of what congress and the liberals in power put in place and created from “Main Street” to “Wall Street” period.
