I saw this in todays Cincinnati Enquirer...

Aztar Corp. Friday agreed to be bought by Fort Mitchell-based Columbia Sussex Corp. for $2.01 billion, ending a two-month bidding war for the owner of the Tropicana casino in Las Vegas.

The 50-year-old Tropicana is located across from the MGM Grand and New York New York casinos at the busiest intersection in Las Vegas. A new mega resort and casino on the 34-acre site could give Columbia Sussex an attraction to lure gamblers to its other regional properties.

Columbia Sussex will pay $54 a share in cash for Aztar, the Phoenix-based Aztar said in a statement. Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., which previously had an agreement to buy Aztar, Friday refused to further increase its $1.9 billion offer.

Aztar's other holdings include the Tropicana hotel casino in Atlantic City, N.J., and Casino Aztar, a riverboat on the Ohio River at Evansville, Ind.

"Aztar's unique assets are a perfect fit with our existing hotel and gaming properties, and we see many opportunities to improve financial performance by expanding the Tropicana brand, finishing building projects in Indiana and Atlantic City, and developing the Las Vegas property," Columbia Sussex CEO William Yung III said in a statement.

"Columbia Sussex wanted to enter Las Vegas pretty badly, and they were willing to pay top dollar for it," said James McBride, vice president of Trendstar Advisors LLC in Overland Park, Kan., which holds Aztar shares among $400 million in assets.

Columbia Sussex and its affiliates own 83 hotels and 8 casinos with about 27,000 rooms.

The company, founded in 1972, ranked third on the 2005 Cincinnati USA/Deloitte 100 list of the largest privately held companies based in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

For 2004, the company reported revenues of $787 million with nearly 11,000 employees (including 240 at its headquarters).

It operates the Westin Casuarina in Las Vegas and riverboat casinos including the Belle of New Orleans and the Belle of Baton Rouge in Louisiana; the Jubilee Casino and the Lighthouse Point Casino in Greenville, Miss.; and the Horizon Casino Hotel in Vicksburg, Miss. On Thursday, it cut a deal to buy the Casino Queen in Illinois, on the Mississippi River opposite St. Louis.

Columbia Sussex's lone hotel in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is the Airport Radisson in Hebron.

It will assume $676 million in debt and said its offer is backed by $3.15 billion in debt financing from Credit Suisse. Columbia Sussex will pay $573.13 for each Aztar preferred share.

In addition, Columbia Sussex has made a deposit of $313 million with Aztar that is payable in certain circumstances, including failure to obtain regulatory approval.

Columbia Sussex said it would increase the purchase price by about $320,000 a day beginning Nov. 19 if regulatory approvals have not been met. If the deal isn't completed by Feb. 19, 2007, Columbia Sussex will pay Aztar shareholders about $425,000 each day after that.

Pinnacle owns Belterra Casino Resort & Spa, one of the three gaming riverboats on the Ohio River in Southeast Indiana