By Andrew McIntyre

Law360 (April 24, 2020, 9:50 PM EDT) -- Jones Day represented Twin River Worldwide Holdings in connection with its purchase of three resorts and casinos for $180 million, including a $25 million purchase of an Atlantic City property, according to an announcement on Friday from Twin River.

Twin River Worldwide Holdings Inc. is buying Eldorado Shreveport Resort and Casino in Shreveport, Louisiana, as well as MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, for $155 million from Eldorado Resorts Inc., and is also purchasing Bally's Atlantic City Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from Caesars Entertainment Corp. and Vici Properties Inc. for $25 million.

Casinos in Atlantic City were struggling before COVID-19 hit, and the pandemic has put further financial pressure on those properties and forced them all to close for the time being.

"These acquisitions represent a unique opportunity to continue executing on our expansion and diversification strategy at attractive valuation multiples," George Papanier, CEO of Twin River, said in a statement on Friday. "We see significant opportunities to create cross-marketing connections for customers at multiple Twin River locations, and we look forward to applying our proven operating and integration approach to drive incremental revenues and cash flows."

The three properties have a combined 2,092 hotel rooms, 3,318 slots and 176 tables. Eldorado Shreveport Resort and Casino also has 6,000 square feet of convention space.

Eldorado Resorts had planned to sell the Louisiana and Nevada properties to Maverick Gaming LLC but has now terminated those sale agreements and returned deposits to Maverick, the company said in a separate statement on Friday.

In January, before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Eldorado had reached a deal to sell the Louisiana property to Maverick for $230 million, while the sale price of the Nevada property was not disclosed. Eldorado is working to wrap an $8.58 billion purchase of Caesars, a deal Eldorado announced last summer.

"The agreement to divest Shreveport and MontBleu to Twin River Worldwide Holdings is consistent with our continued focus on closing the Caesars transaction in the first half of 2020," Tom Reeg, CEO of Eldorado, said in a statement on Friday.

Regarding the Atlantic City property, Vici Properties will receive roughly $19 million of the $25 million purchase price while Caesars is slated to receive proceeds of roughly $6 million from the sale, Caesars and Vici Properties said in a separate statement on Friday.

"We look forward to the reopening of Bally's Atlantic City as soon as appropriate once the public health emergency related to COVID-19 has passed," Caesars CEO Tony Rodio said in a statement on Friday.

Vici Properties, a real estate investment trust, is based in New York and owns more than 40 million square feet of properties, including 28 gaming facilities.

"The sale of Bally's Atlantic City demonstrates our ongoing commitment to work collaboratively with our tenants to optimize our individual businesses, even during these unprecedented times," John Payne, chief operating officer of Vici Properties, said in a statement on Friday.

The $155 million deal is expected to close in the first half of 2021 and the $25 million deal in late 2020 or early 2021, according to Twin River.

Macquarie Capital is Eldorado Resorts' financial adviser for the deal. Citizens Capital Markets Inc. is advising Twin River.

Twin River is represented by Jones Day.

Eldorado Resorts is represented on its two sales by Jason Anderson, Deborah Conrad, Roy Jackson and Fiona Schaeffer of Milbank LLP.

Vici Properties is represented by Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.

Counsel information for Caesars Entertainment was not immediately available on Friday.

--Additional reporting by Joyce Hanson and Chelsea Naso. Editing by Janice Carter Brown.

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