ZZZ - GMG - VEGAS INC 2011-2014

VEGAS INC C OV E R STO RY A new real estate boom associated press A GOOD DEAL: Warren Buffett smiles during a television interview in Omaha, Neb. The billionaire investor bought NV Energy this year for $5.6 billion. NV Energy sale Investor Warren Buffett became one of the world's wealthiest men by buying insurance providers, jewelry stores, underwear brands and aviation companies. This year, he added another business to his corporate kingdom: NV Energy. Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. reached a deal in late May to buy Nevada's primary electric utility for $5.6 billion cash. Including debt, the deal is valued at about $10 billion. Investors cheered the news, sending NV Energy's stock up 22.5 percent the day after the buyout was announced. Customers likely will feel little impact from the sale, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014. Buffett, chairman and CEO of the Nebraska-based conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, typically keeps executives in place at his subsidiaries. The same is expected for NV Energy. But shareholders, including NV Energy's top executive, are poised to reap a financial windfall from the deal. President and CEO Michael Yackira, one of the highestpaid executives in the valley, is expected to collect $21.2 million from the buyout, far more than NV Energy's nine other board members, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Board Chairman Philip Satre is expected to see a payout of $2.7 million; board member Glenn Christenson, a former Station Casinos executive, $2.5 million; and board member John O'Reilly, a local attorney, $2 million. | 16 DECEMBER 2013 20131216_VI01_F.indd 15 | The valley's real estate market has finally come back to life after collapsing during the recession. In fact, prices soared so much this year that some real estate pros worried that another bubble was forming. Sales prices for previously owned single-family homes rose 30 percent year-over-year, one of the fastest rates nationally. Prices for new homes climbed at a similar pace, while the price of vacant land in parts of the valley more than doubled during the first half of the year. Some experts said the gains merely reflect Las Vegas' recovery from a horrendous market. Others, however, were wary of what they saw as unsustainable price growth. Last decade, Las Vegas' doomed housing boom was fueled by rampant flipping and sloppy mortgage lending that let almost anyone buy vastly overpriced homes. These days, strong demand for a limited inventory of homes is pushing up prices. Investors, many of them backed by Wall Street funds, have been buying cheap homes in bulk to turn into rentals. Availability also is limited by homeowners who refuse to sell or can't sell because they're underwater or stuck in foreclosure processing delays. Prices climbed so high and so fast that some big investment firms started looking elsewhere for better real estate deals and pared down on local purchases. Culinary Union vs. the Cosmopolitan There's the Eiffel Tower at Paris, the Fountains of the Bellagio and the sea of red shirts outside the Cosmopolitan. The red shirts belong to members of the Culinary Union, who over the past year have staged several protests outside the $4 billion resort. Why? Because they want a contract. Tensions mounted in March, when almost 100 members of the Culinary sat in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard and let Metro police arrest them. The civil disobedience represented a boiling point in a two-year saga of stalled contract negotiations between workers and the resort's owner, Deutsche Bank. Union employees have been working at the Cosmopolitan without a contract for two years. Culinary members eventually promised to hold weekly protests outside the resort, picketing every weekend. On Nov. 1, 120 members sat in the middle of the Cosmopolitan's casino floor, waiting for police to escort them off the property in zip ties. The union also launched CulinaryConfidential.org, a hotel Train projects delayed This was a bad year for rail transportation in Southern Nevada. Two highly-anticipated projects endured major setbacks, but backers of both XpressWest and the Las Vegas Railway Express X Train insist their plans aren't derailed. XpressWest, the $5.5 billion high-speed train that would link Las Vegas with Southern California, is mired in bureaucratic red tape and a political quagmire. The Federal Railway Administration doubts that ridership would produce enough revenue to pay off a federal loan to fund the project, and two congressmen have demanded that the loan be denied. XpressWest spent hundreds of thousands of dollars devising a route along Interstate 15 and getting environmental approvals in anticipation of building 185 miles of track designed to carry trains at up to 150 mph. But its loan has yet to be approved. Meanwhile, the X Train, a party train designed to run from Fullerton, Calif., to Las Vegas, hit a bump in its bid to begin operations in early 2014. Las Vegas Railway Express CEO Michael Barron's plans to build a train station at the Plaza fell through, and critics ripped his proposal to lease land for a station in North Las Vegas. When Barron announced plans to seek a publicprivate partnership to help pay for the train, media reports declared the project dead. Barron called the reports untrue. He said the delays have merely set the project back 18 months. stePHEN R. sYLVANIE Sit In: About 100 members of the Culinary Union picket on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of the Cosmopolitan, closing down a section of the street. review blog intended to tarnish the Cosmopolitan's reputation. Insiders say Deutsche Bank would rather sell the resort than negotiate with the union. Economic development Las Vegas is famous for hosting world-class boxing matches and entertainment, but is it a global business hub? Local leaders certainly are trying to position it that way. Economic development took a front seat in 2013 as officials planned a refurbished convention center and revamped development agencies. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority delivered details of a planned new Las Vegas Global Business District, a $2.5 billion facelift of the Las Vegas Convention Center that will add meeting rooms, a conference facility, a World Trade Center and multimodal transportation hub. The project is expected to take eight to 10 years to complete. The Nevada Development Authority rebranded itself as the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance in a bid to attract both domestic and foreign businesses to Southern Nevada. And community development offices pledged a new spirit of collegiality to work together to attract local industry and investment. The Las Vegas and North Las Vegas chambers of commerce merged and pledged to work in tandem with the LVGEA and Governor's Office of Economic Development. On the tourism side, officials with McCarran International Airport and the LVCVA met with dozens of airline executives in October to try to attract more flights to Las Vegas, particularly from overseas. Local tourism leaders schmoozed with airline decision-makers who decide where planes fly. The results of the efforts won't be seen for months, but leaders are optimistic they'll get additional international lift to accommodate the global business they're wooing. 15 12/12/13 3:57:46 PM

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