Deutsche Bank Drowning in Vegas on Costliest Bank-Owned Casino

From Bloomberg --


Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG’s Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino complex in Las Vegas, already the most expensive debacle in the city for a single lender, is now two years behind schedule, $2 billion over budget and under water -- literally.

Deutsche Bank, the resort’s owner since it foreclosed on developer Ian Bruce Eichner last year, requires 24-hour pumps and containment walls after workers hit an aquifer below the Nevada desert floor. It’s another challenge for a project whose delays and redesigns have sparked lawsuits from condominium buyers and sales agents amid record declines in Las Vegas’s gambling revenue, home prices and hotel-room bookings.

The German bank’s foray into the heart of the U.S. gambling industry, where it’s also a lender to bankrupt Station Casinos Inc. and the unfinished Fontainebleau, looms as an “impending disaster,” casino magnate Stephen Wynn said on a conference call with analysts last month. Wynn, who presides over the Wynn and Encore Las Vegas resorts, built the Bellagio next door to the Cosmopolitan.

Deutsche Bank took over the project after Eichner defaulted on a $760 million loan last year. The Frankfurt-based lender hired Related Cos., the developer of New York’s Time Warner Center, to oversee construction of the development’s two high- rise condominium and hotel towers, resort and casino. Cosmopolitan sits on 8.5 acres between the 76-acre Bellagio, MGM Mirage’s most profitable resort, and CityCenter, the firm’s newest development, packed on 67 acres.

Betting on Rebound

So far, Deutsche Bank has had to write down 500 million euros ($748 million) on Cosmopolitan. The sum could rise if the Las Vegas market fails to revive, said Dirk Becker, an analyst at Kepler Capital Markets in Frankfurt. The bank is offering condominium buyers in one Cosmopolitan tower 74 percent of their deposit to walk away, according to a copy of the proposal provided by a lawyer for some purchasers.

“Deutsche Bank had a difficult choice: selling an unfinished project or building the casino itself,” Becker said. “The bank probably never wanted to become a casino-builder in Las Vegas, but selling the project right after the real estate crash could’ve led to higher losses.”

Next door to Cosmopolitan, MGM Mirage and Dubai World, an investment arm of the emirate of Dubai, are completing the $8.5 billion CityCenter after lenders, led by Bank of America Corp., agreed to finance $1.8 billion. Further north on the Las Vegas Strip, work halted on the Fontainebleau in June with a bankruptcy filing after its lenders, including Deutsche Bank, refused further funding. The 63-story casino resort is about 70 percent complete.

‘Appropriate Strategy’

In the case of Cosmopolitan, “the bank concluded last year that completing the project was an appropriate strategy,” said John Gallagher, a Deutsche Bank spokesman in New York. “We cannot comment on the bank’s long-term plans for the Cosmopolitan. However, the bank has been and remains committed to building a world-class resort and casino that will become an integral, vibrant part of the Las Vegas economy.”

Deutsche Bank executives who have applied for gaming licenses from Nevada casino regulators include Jon Vaccaro, global head of commercial real estate; Jeffrey Baer, head of global logistic services; Donna Milrod, head of regional oversight and strategy; and Eric Schwartz, a managing director in the bank’s commercial real estate group, according to Deutsche Bank and the Nevada Gaming Control Board. They are all based in New York.

The four may become the first Las Vegas Strip casino-owning bankers to obtain the credential. The closest comparison: an affiliate of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Whitehall Street Real Estate Fund underwent licensing as it took control of a portion of the Las Vegas Hilton, according to Thomas Hanna, coordinator of applicant services at the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Hotel-Room Glut

Gambling revenue on the Las Vegas Strip tumbled more than 12 percent this year through September, more than last year’s record 11 percent drop, according to the Nevada Gaming Commission. Las Vegas home values dropped 55 percent from their August 2006 high, according to the S&P/Case Shiller single family home price index.

When Eichner, developer of the luxury condominium Continuum in Miami, broke ground in October 2005, the Cosmopolitan was slated to cost $1.8 billion and open in mid-2008, according to a press release at the time. Deutsche Bank now plans to open the doors in September 2010.

The current projected total cost of the project, according to analysts: $3.9 billion. That’s part of the reason the Cosmopolitan is the costliest project in Las Vegas for a single lender, according to New York-based research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc.

More Premium Rooms

As the costs of the development mount, high-end hotel rooms are popping up on the Strip, including 6,000 at CityCenter, the hotel, condominium, casino and mall complex opening next door to Cosmopolitan next month.

CityCenter will add 29 percent more so-called premium rooms on the Strip to the more than 20,000 available before Cosmopolitan opens, said Dennis Farrell, a casino debt analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. Citywide, Las Vegas already has about 140,000 hotel rooms, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

“The Cosmo is going to be a dormitory for people who want to go to CityCenter and Bellagio on either side,” said Farrell. “You’ll have great views of both neighboring properties from the rooms, but I don’t know what other amenities they’ll be able to offer their customers that will be profitable enough returns on investment.”

‘Cosmo Beach Club’

Cosmopolitan’s original design included a 75,000-square- foot casino, a 1,800-seat theater and a five-acre “Cosmo Beach Club” overlooking the Strip, according to the press release. Deutsche Bank declined to discuss subsequent modifications.

Now the project is swimming in water from an underground aquifer that once irrigated the golf course at the now- demolished Dunes. These days, the water helps refill a fountain at the Bellagio that “dances” to ballads every half-hour -- and twice as often after dark.

The aquifer forms as runoff seeps into the ground and pools atop a layer of caliche, a cement-like rock, according to Bronson Mack, a spokesman at Las Vegas Valley Water District. Resorts often excavate through the caliche to build footings and parking garages, creating an ongoing need to pump water, Mack said.

“The relatively high water table on this site required the installation of a pump system and containment walls,’’ said Gallagher, the Deutsche Bank spokesman. “This is not uncommon for any Las Vegas project that includes underground parking or other underground facilities. The temporary certificate of occupancy for the entire parking garage, including the pumping system itself, was granted in February 2009, and we have encountered no problems whatsoever.”

‘Just Bad Luck’

Built around the Jockey Club resort, Cosmopolitan had no choice but to dig deep and build its parking garage below ground, regardless of the water, said Dan Fasulo, managing director for Real Capital Analytics. The Cosmopolitan’s subterranean parking structure was designed to hold 3,800 automobiles, according to the 2005 press release.

“Any construction project of this size runs into problems,” Fasulo said. “But to bump into an aquifer is just bad luck.”