American Vantage Companies says it's reviewing proposals to provide financing for a $125 million hotel and casino project the company plans in northern Douglas County.
Unless the publicly held company's fortunes have changed dramatically in recent months, it will need a lot of financial help to pull off the casino project.
The Las Vegas-based company said last week it is putting the finishing touches on preliminary plans for development of Brown-stone GoldTown Hotel and Casino Resort on a 45-acre parcel along U.S. 395 south of Carson City.
And American Vantage said it is "reviewing financing proposals from various institutional funding sources for the permanent financing" of the project.
Ronald Tassinari, the president and chief executive officer of American Vantage Companies, didn't respond last week to a phone message asking for more detail about the project and how it will be financed.
And the company cautioned that there's no assurance that it can put together a financing package that would allow the hotel-casino project to move forward.
Although the American Vantage common stock trades on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board system, it hasn't filed quarterly financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission since late 2005.
In a filing with the SEC a year ago, however, American Vantage said it had net assets of about $12 million. Its 49 percent ownership of a Las Vegas restaurant, Border Grill at the Mandalay Bay, accounted for about a third of its assets, and cash accounted for another third.
The biggest remaining piece of the company's assets, an investment in video distributor Genius Products Inc., faces a court challenge.
Executives of Genius Products claimed in a court filing last month that American Vantage made misrepresentations in a 2005 merger, and they seek at least $2.4 million in damages from the Las Vegas firm.
From its collection of assets, American Vantage generated a loss of $436,000 in the first quarter of 2006, the last time it reported its earnings.
In announcing its development plans last week, American Vantage said the Douglas County hotel and casino would be a joint venture with RFG Gaming & Hospitality LLC as well other investors.
Privately held RFG Gaming & Hospitality is headed by Robert F. Gross of Mesquite, a tribal gaming consultant who also partnered with American Vantage on a gaming resort proposed on tribal lands near Fresno.
In a press release last week, American Vantage said it holds an option that runs through January on the 45 acres proposed as the site of the hotel casino and expects to begin construction late this year. The project would be open in 2009, the company said.
The company's preliminary plans include 300 hotel rooms, 92,000 square feet of casino space, restaurants, a convention facility and 50,000 square feet of retail space.
A second phase, the company said, might include more hotel rooms, a 12-screen movie theater, a special events center and another 50,000 to 100,000 square feet of retail or multi-use space.
The joint venture developing the GoldTown Hotel and Casino said it's hired the law firm of Lionel Sawyer and Collins to guide it through the gaming-license process.
The company said its site already has been approved for use as a casino.
The joint venture that would develop the project, a company known as Brownstone GoldTown LLC, expects to generate development and management fees from the project along with its share of the profits from an equity investment, American Vantage said in its press release.
