Sam Nazarian Sells SLS Las Vegas Stake

Sam Nazarian and his company SBE are selling their ten percent stake in SLS Las Vegas as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Stockbridge Capital Partners will be purchasing SBE's stake and will now own 100% of the resort.

SBE will also be transferring management of the resort to Stockbridge, who will lease the SLS brand from SBE.

Nazarian and SBE were responsible for closing the historic Sahara hotel and transforming it into SLS. While SBE has a pretty good track record of hotel and nightclub management, they might have bit off more than they could chew with SLS Las Vegas.

The casino has struggled to attract gamblers, and the restaurants and nightclubs have received a tepid response from the public. Fred Segal, the exclusive SLS retail partner also packed up and left town.

Those struggles have led to a disastrous financial performance. According to SEC filings SLS has been losing money hand over fist which has caused Stockbridge to infuse cash to keep the hotel afloat. Some kind of management change had to happen after those results.

It will be interesting to see what Stockbridge will do now to turn things around. Some people think this move paves the way for a sale of SLS, but I think Stockbridge will at least attempt to right the ship before that happens.