A few years back, casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp., or at least its investors, were rumored to be looking at buying the stalled and unfinished Fontainebleau casino-resort project on the Las Vegas Strip.
That didn't happen, and billionaire investor Carl Icahn eventually bought the project out of bankruptcy. Though it is 70-percent completed, he hasn't announced plans for it.
This week, Caesars CEO Gary Loveman suggested the casino-resort might not have a bright future.
The $2.9 billion Fontainebleau was financed during the easy-money boom years but was never completed, in part, because of the cratering of the economy during the recession, Loveman told analysts Tuesday during a company presentation for investors coinciding with G2E. Construction halted on the 3,815-room casino-resort and it filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
"Perhaps one of the poster children for this is the still-unfinished Fontainebleau here in Las Vegas, which was perhaps not a very well conceived project from the very beginning and is likely someday to find its future as a scrap metal liquidation effort for Carl Icahn," Loveman said.