The Stock Market and Wynn Resorts
By Josh Resnek
All our Everett readers with retirement accounts and stock portfolios or IRA’s and 401K’s are watching with heightened attention as the stock markets are heading all over the place from week to week.
The swings have been death defying -up 400 one day and down 600 on another, as happened on Monday.
Experts and analysts say the volatility level is dangerously high, as evidenced by the wide swings.
In other words, anything could happen and it likely will. All of our accounts these days are like electronic blips with our personal numbers.
These wild swings can cause our accounts to go up or down by as much as 10%-15% in a day.
Some stocks widely owned by Everett people – Apple, Google, and Amazon – can go up or down $10 – $15 in a day!
Once the apple of everyone’s eye, GE is nearly hitting rock bottom. The stock has fallen on hard times, as the company has fallen on hard times. The dividend has been cut to a penny. The stock price is hovering at $8.00. It was $20 a share this time last year.
Of great local interest, Wynn Resorts stock has been on a long and wearying downward plunge.
Last year this time the stock was about $190.00. As of Tuesday, Wynn Resorts was checking at about $98.
Also, the value of all Wynn Resorts stock which was up to total of about $45 billion last year this time is now closer to $10.5 billion.
The extraordinary decline of the company’s overall value places pressure on its ability to borrow as well as to meet obligations. A slowdown of its business in Macau hasn’t helped Wynn Resorts stock price.
The fact Wynn Resorts needs $500 million to $1 billion to finish off the Everett project is no easy financial mountain to climb or obligation to keep in such a financial environment.
The Gaming Commission’s Coming Decision
A great many people who understand how the state’s bureaucracy works are betting the Massachusetts Gaming Commission will announce in late December that Wynn Resorts is suitable to hold its gambling license. Despite all the lies and frauds perpetrated by nearly all the local players having to do with the polluted Monsanto site as well as Steve Wynn’s secret $7.5 million paternity suit payout he did not inform the MGC about – and which his underlings have all admitted knowing about – it would appear the proverbial x is in.
I understand the x is a bit more difficult for the commissioners to swallow now that it is so near to game time, that is, when their decision is announced.
“Am I going to sign my name to a Wynn Resorts whitewash?” one commissioner recently asked the other, according to an insider who claims to know.
“Am I crazy! I’d be nuts to do that,” allegedly said the commissioner.
Frankly, it is impossible to imagine the MGC will find Wynn Resorts suitable after all the evidence has been weighed and measured and the report is made public.
The report is one thing, what is done with it is another.
“The commission will find Wynn unsuitable. Then the commission will fine Wynn Resorts $50 million and hold them to a short leash,” said a local businessman with special insights into the coming revelation by the MGC.
“Then Wynn Resorts will be suitable again and everyone can get on with their business to get this thing finished and open in June, 2019,” he told the Leader Herald.
Here’s the deal right now.
If Wynn Resorts is found to be suitable, everything goes on seamlessly for Wynn Resorts. Their other properties in Macau and in Las Vegas remain untouched by the controversy, and besides, if found suitable, the controversy goes away.
But what if Wynn Resorts is found unsuitable?
That’s a problem not just for licensing here in Massachusetts but it creates a problem with Nevada Gaming regulators and supposedly, could do the same in Macau.
Why?
Because if a gaming giant is found unsuitable anywhere, it is deemed unsuitable everywhere.
MGM, who was eyed for the gaming license with Wynn Resorts and Suffolk Downs was investigated as to its unsuitability by the MGC in 2013 and as a result, lost out on its bid for the Boston/ Everett casino site.
Suitable or unsuitable, that is the question.
Wynn Resorts must already know the MGC is finding it suitable. Otherwise, Wynn Resorts trying to hold on to its position in
Everett would be suicidal for the company.
If not found suitable, Wynn Resorts ability to operate in Las Vegas and Macau will very likely be impacted.
This is why so many in the know believe the x is in, that Wynn Resorts gets a clean bill of health despite all the evidence against it If the x wasn’t in, and Wynn Resorts was being judged on the merits of the evidence, the for sale sign would already be hung maybe on the new sign that just went up.
The MGC’s profile in courage is coming up.
I can’t wait…although in the meantime, anything can happen, and this includes the for sale sign going up at the new casino, with folks like Bob DeSalvio, Greg John, John Tocco and even Mintz Levin, all looking for new jobs or clients.
It would cause the city of Everett to very likely declare a bankruptcy, and send our mayor into hiding.
Let’s see what develops.
The Mayor’s Fundraiser Aiming For $80,000 For Legal Bills
Into each life some rain must fall. Some days will be dark and dreary. These are the extraordinary opening lines to Longfellow’s famous magnum opus, Hiawatha.
They might serve well as the opening lines to the psychodrama surrounding the mayor’s fundraiser this week at Anthony’s in Malden.
If you can put yourself inside the mayor’s head at this point in his life, this fundraiser finds him besieged on a number of fronts.
First off, he needs money to pay his legal bills or so it would appear.
Back in June, we discovered the mayor had been spending about $10,000 a month for criminal attorneys at the international law rm Greenberg Traurig which has offices in Boston at International Place. Assuming he hasn’t paid his legal bills since June – and there was almost no money in the campaign account at that time, then he likely owes about $50,000 in legal fees.
If all goes well this week Wednesday evening at Anthony’s in Malden, the mayor will net out maybe $80,000 at his fundraiser. Where does all the money come from? Who makes these donations?
Many city employees make these donations. It isn’t mandatory. There is no law written that says a city employee must make a contribution to the mayor’s campaign account. But why the fundraiser anyway? The mayor last ran without an opponent and is not facing re-election for another 3 years.
Legal fees appears to answer this question. Another question arises.
Why is the mayor paying so much for criminal legal representation?
Only the mayor knows and he isn’t about to tell us or anyone else for that matter.
Back to employees making contributions…is there a problem if you are a city employee in a better position and you fail to make a contribution say in the $500 area?
There very likely could be a problem.
How would this manifest itself?
At worst, you could lose your job. You could be demoted.
You could be investigated, penalized, made to suffer so to speak.
At best, you’d need to give a larger amount in order just to be left alone.
Does it work this way at Everett City Hall?
Some variation of this system causes a mayor of Everett, this mayor, to raise as much as $80,000 in one night, with nearly all of it probably gone paying the criminal attorneys! I don’t pretend to understand the real dynamic that causes men and women who work for the city to feel compelled to make such large contributions, especially during a non-election year.
After all, no matter what all of us makes, we always need more. Having to shell out $250, 500 or $1000 to the mayor for his fundraiser is a burden more than it is a pleasure
I heard of one city employee who left off a check last week for the mayor’s time who was allegedly told, “The check isn’t for enough.”
What a shocking incident that is, if such a story is true.
I am wondering if the mayor raises as much this time around as last year, and whether or not his admirers and contributors want to be donating money that pays for criminal attorneys to represent him.
We can’t let you know exactly how much the mayor raises this week at his time until we can scan the contributor’s list as provided by the Office of Campaigns and Political Finance.
As soon as we have the results in January, we will publish the entire list and the amounts contributed by those attending the mayor’s time.
The City’s Financial Position
I am not privy to anything the city does first hand unless I receive firsthand information from individuals who wish to remain anonymous. The city hall folks aren’t allowed to speak with the Leader Herald. Even the city’s communications savant Tom Philbin doesn’t really feel like communicating with us. His office has even stopped sending over the news releases produced by the mayor’s communications team.
And now I understand that the communications team has taken over the Do You Remember photograph we offered up each week with the aid of the Everett Public Library.
The folks at city hall will be handling it now, we understand, “To make the feature more efficient,” we were told by someone who claimed to know.
Can you guess what happened?
In the apparent effort to get us a photograph and cutline last week, this just couldn’t be accomplished.
Shows you what a great distance it is from the corner office at Everett City Hall to our of offices at 28 Church Street – about 100 yards away!