Westwood Capital, LLC is in the process of working up what it calls three "noteworthy deals" in different stages of development, and also foresees using asset-backed securitization to finance the completion of resort casinos, a type of project Westwood has immersed itself in recently.
Specifically, the New York-based boutique financial services firm is currently helping to structure a $150 million transportation equipment deal, a $35 million SBA loan transaction, and a $150 million aircraft lease offering for unnamed issuers.
Mark Sunshine - who along with Daniel Alpert - is the principal and founder of Westwood, said he also envisions financing the construction of casino/hotels by using securitization as a funding tool.
The company's leveraged loan syndication for Aladdin Gaming Holdings, LLC. was named "Breakthrough Deal of the Year" by Investment Dealers Digest, and Westwood recently scored the development and financing of "The Beverly Hillbillies," a venture comprising hotels and casinos, all replete with the characters, settings, events and motifs from the 1960s television sitcom.
Likely revenue streams would be leases from retail shopping stores which will be housed in the resorts.
In the case of Aladdin, Sunshine said that Westwood "condominimized" the building by financing each part of the building separately depending on where it was most effective for the financing. The deal was dubbed a condo style-leveraged loan syndication.
Sunshine stressed that neither the Aladdin nor the Hillbillies deal was an asset-backed deal, and would not elaborate on what a Casino ABS might look like in the future.
