Kazuo Okada quits Wynn Resorts board
Japanese mogul says he's determined to fight Steve Wynn over 20 per cent stake in company
Kazuo Okada, the Japanese pachinko billionaire who is in a conflict with Nevada casino mogul Steve Wynn over the control of Wynn Resorts, resigned from the company's board of directors yesterday.
Okada, the chairman of pachinko machine maker Universal Entertainment and co-founder of Wynn Resorts, said in a statement on his resignation that he remained "determined" to fight Steve Wynn's involuntary redemption of his nearly 20 per cent stake in Wynn Resorts at a 30 per cent discount.
Grant Govertsen, the lead analyst at Macau-based Union Gaming Research, said that on an operational level, the dispute between Wynn and Okada would not have any impact.
"Customers do not care about such matters and are therefore unlikely to change their decision-making behaviour," Govertsen said.
In reality, he said, the only difference that had been seen operationally was that the Japanese restaurants named after Okada at Wynn Las Vegas and Wynn Macau had both been renamed as Mizumi.
The Hong Kong shares of Wynn Macau, which is building a US$4 billion project on the Cotai Strip in Macau, yesterday closed unchanged at HK$20.05 in a market that finished 0.54 per cent lower.