Park Place To Focus On Caesars, Developments

LOS ANGELES— Park Place Entertainment has realigned management and will now focus on new developments, property improvements and buying back stock, CEO Tom Gallagher recently told Reuters. He made his remarks following this week’s resignation of Mark Dodson, who had overseen Park Place’s western U.S. properties and was co-COO with East Coast property chief Wallace Barr. The COO position is now solely held by Barr. Gallagher, who became CEO in October after the death of former CEO Arthur Goldberg, had set a six-month timeframe to set up his future management team. In other personnel moves, Gallagher has recruited a head of corporate human resources, and is now looking for a head of corporate communications. Two of the major initiatives announced by Park Place during Gallagher’s tenure thus far have both involved Caesars Palace. In the larger of the two initiatives, Park Place will add a $450 million tower to the property over the next three years. In the other, the company will build a $75 million entertainment center set to open in early 2003. Park Place was in the process of selling the Las Vegas Hilton to developer Ed Roski, Jr., but that deal fell apart after Roski reportedly could not secure financing. Since then, Park Place under Gallagher has said it no longer intends to sell the property, and will try instead to capitalize on its location next to the Las Vegas Convention Center to reposition it as a meeting oriented hotel. In other markets, Gallagher said that Park Place would still like to find a buyer for its Flamingo casino in Reno. On the development side, the company is looking at a number of markets for single property deals. The most viable of those is a deal with the Mohawk tribe for a Native American casino near New York City. (7/12/01) SOURCE: Reuters