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Nine years later, he sold the 66-year old property for $1.2 billion, achieving the highest price ever per square foot for a Strip property. Ruffin first entered the ranks of Strip casino owners when he bought the struggling New Frontier, a 984-room property once owned by Howard Hughes, for $167 million in 1998. “Most of the owners we think about as sole owners - Benny Binion, Sam Boyd and Jackie Gaughan - actually had other investors in the project with them.” “It is relatively rare historically for any casino to be solely owned,” Las Vegas historian David Schwartz said. There have been more than 20 gaming industry acquisitions totaling $15 billion over the past two years, and that trend is set to continue, according to Deutsche Bank. Larger gaming corporations have been snapping up smaller competitors at the fastest clip since the start of the great financial crisis last decade. Ruffin’s property is surrounded by casinos owned by MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts, which have a combined market value of about $100 bil- lion. Wall Street’s acceptance of gambling in the 1980s has led to Strip casinos being run and owned by large, publicly traded corporations or the biggest private equity funds. The son of a grocery store owner, Ruffin is odd man out on Las Vegas Boulevard these days. Ruffin didn’t disclose the Chinese company that offered to buy his property. Assets are valuable, especially when they are irreplaceable.’’ “There isn’t any price they could throw at me that would interest me,’’ he said during a recent interview in his office at TI. “They sat in that boardroom and wanted to make an entry in the United States, but we just didn’t want to do it,’’ Ruffin said about his meeting with the Chinese company last year. The 82-year old said he has turned down a “huge’’ offer from a Chinese company as well as two local operators for TI, which he now owns, because Strip assets are “irreplaceable.” Phil Ruffin made nearly $1 billion when he sold the New Frontier to a real estate investment group in 2007.īut the Wichita, Kansas, businessman and friend of President Donald Trump said he has no intention of repeating that feat. 'strip,' across from the Wynn Las Vegas resort.(AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)
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Kansas billionaire businessman Phil Ruffin, right, hands the microphone over to Donald Trump, Tuesday, Jin Las Vegas during a ceremony to mark the start of the 64-story hotel and apartment tower that Trump and Ruffin will build on the Las Vegas Blvd.