Ruffin Negotiating Sale of Strip Site for $1.2B

LAS VEGAS-Billionaire businessman Phil Ruffin says he is close to signing an agreement to sell a few dozen Strip-front acres here that includes the New Frontier Hotel & Casino for $1.2 billion. Located across from Steve Wynn’s development, Ruffin acquired the acreage in the late 1990s for less than $200 million, according to published reports.

The would-be buyer is New York City-based El Ad Properties, which is the US real estate arm of Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva. The deal is by no means a sure thing, but that hasn’t stopped Ruffin from talking about it.

The Wichita native told his local newspaper and an international wire service that a deal could be signed in a couple of weeks and that he is abandoning his own plans for the site, a Swiss-themed, Montreaux-brand resort for which he says he had lined up $2.7-billion in financing. He then reportedly told an casino industry Web site that El Ad “was just kicking the tires.”