River Cree Casino fully Enoch-owned thanks to cross-border bond sales

A successful operation and strong social programming combined to make the River Cree Casino and Resort a sound business venture for Canadian and American investors, said Chief Ron Morin.

The issuance of cross-border bonds to both public and private institutional investors allowed Enoch Cree Nation and River Cree Enterprises LP to buy out Paragon Gaming’s minority shares. The casino and resort is now solely owned by the First Nation with an operating contract held by Sonco Gaming Co., a Canadian casino operator, with the management of the hotel still undertaken by Marriott.

The buy-out came well ahead of schedule, says Robert Morin, president of River Cree Enterprises. RCE had a 25-year partnership for the management of the property with Paragon.
The Las Vegas company’s expertise in development and strategic planning was initially required for the venture, says Morin, and Paragon also brought American investors in to help with financing.

It had always been Enoch’s intention to buy-out the partnership, but that had been set at a 12 to15-year timeline, he says.
“We just had such a successful five-year run that the project was able to finance a buy-out of our partnership,” said Morin. The casino and resort began operating in October 2006. Work began to buy-out Paragon one year ago.

Morin says success was due to a number of factors including the strong Alberta economy, the casino’s ideal location on the western outskirts of Edmonton, its quality product and its great service. This all combined to make River Cree Casino and Resort an attractive option for investors.

“In the States, they’ve looked at tribal casinos as investment tools before but they’ve never really looked at us in the same manner as 100 per cent owners,” said Morin.

Investors are split evenly between American and Canadian, says Ed Giocomelli, with Crosbie and Company, which served as financial advisors to the Enoch Cree Nation.

In order to buy-out Paragon, RCE needed to refinance the existing debt for the resort, says Giacomell. While financing was a combination of banks and bonds, the majority of the money came through bond issuance. Bonds offer less restrictive terms than banks.

RCE received a bond rating of B+ from Canadian credit-rating company DDRS and B- from American credit-rating company Standard & Poor’s. The highest credit rating given by DDRS is AAA, says Giacomelli, which is accorded to the Government of Canada, and means a lower credit risk. The lowest rating is CCC.
“Those are ratings that are associated with what are called high yield bonds so they do tend to carry a higher interest rate,” said Giacomelli. “The more you move away from triple A the riskier the asset becomes.”

RCE’s credit rating takes a number of factors into consideration, including the amount of debt it is carrying, that the operation is a single-site and not multiple sites, the revenue concentration, the size of the business, and the competitive environment, Giacomelli says.

RCE is the first solely-owned First Nations on-reserve business to issue cross-border bonds.

“We’re an assertive, aggressive First Nation who believes that there’s other ways to create economic opportunity on your lands and the Chief of the Nation … holds the same type of vision that I do. We certainly believe in the Nation and we believe in the community and we believe we are a viable economic operation to give the type of comfort big gain investors … look at,” said Morin. Both he and Ron were driving forces behind the casino.

Giacomelli doesn’t think the recent news that Eagle River Casino may file for bankruptcy would have had an impact on the sale of bonds for River Cree Casino and Resort. The Eagle River Casino, on the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, is partially owned by Paragon Gaming.

“It’s a casino, like the River Cree, but it’s in a different market, it’s a very different business proposition and the River Cree has been so successful,” said Giacomelli.

The River Cree Casino employs close to 900 people, in full-time, part-time and casual capacities. Of those, approximately 10 per cent are from Enoch Cree Nation and 20 per cent are Aboriginal.
Money earned from the casino, over and above paying debt and operational costs, will be put in a trust spent on the Enoch Cree Nation according to membership direction, says Chief Morin.

“The community at large knows (the needs) and what we will try and do is allocate or appropriate what amount of money can reasonably be expended to accommodate all the needs,” he said.