Wynn Plans IPO to Fund $2.4B Dream

LAS VEGAS-Steve Wynn is at it again.

Two years after selling Mirage Resorts to MGM Grand for $6.4 billion, the casino developer filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to take Wynn Resorts Ltd. public in a $408-million offering on the Nasdaq and then use the money to help finance Le Reve, a planned $2.4-billion Las Vegas mega-resort that would rival MGM’s Bellagio, Mirage and Treasure Island casinos.

La Reve, French for “The Dream,” is planned for the Las Vegas Strip on the site of the former Desert Inn that Wynn acquired in 2000. It is scheduled to break ground in 2003 and open in 2005. At five million sf, The Dream would be larger than Mirage and smaller than Bellagio.Amenities are to include a 45-story hotel with 2,400 rooms, a casino with 2000 slots, 18 restaurants, two wedding chapels, an 18-hole golf course, a three-acre lake, a man-made mountain, a Ferrari and Maserati dealership and an art gallery filled with selection from Wynn’s private collection.