I just hung up with George Maloof, who cast doubt on the Financial Times' report that Harrah's has been buying up Palms debt by saying, flat-out: "They're not going to take over my company. It’s so far remote."
Maloof refused to get into any more specifics, repeatedly saying that they're a private company and that they never commented on their financials. I asked whether the Palms had taken a hit during the recession and he answered: "We haven’t been immune to it but we’re doing much better. 2009 was tough for everyone. We’ve been doing much better."
It took a few attempts to get him to react to the FT.com report by Jon Berke and Andrew Ragsly before he finally gave me that quote. Then we had this exchange:
Maloof: Have you tried talking to [Harrah's]?
Me: Yeah, they're not commenting.
Maloof: Yeah, so maybe it’s not true.
And, in fact, not even some of my best Harrah's sources, people who know when Celine Dion has a bowel movement, have any knowledge of any new takeover effort. So it's unclear on that side of things. And it seems similarly clear that the Maloof family is not planning to sell out or default anytime soon.
