Jul. 30--Aladdin Gaming Chairman Richard Goeglein said he was unaware of reported plans to sell the 11-month-old Strip property despite a Sunday story in a British paper detailing the struggling megaresort's pending sale. 

Alan Goodenough, chairman of Aladdin minority owner London Clubs International, will resign today, paving the way for his successor to acquire a 90 percent stake in the megaresort and sell it to an unidentified third party for an undisclosed amount of money, according to The Sunday Telegraph. 

The announcement will accompany London Club's annual results, which will reveal Goodenough's departure as a precursor to the property's sale, the British newspaper reported. 

The story, which cites no named or unnamed sources, noted that Park Place Entertainment is viewed as the most probable buyer of the megaresort, which opened Aug. 18. 

Las Vegas-based Park Place owns the neighboring Paris and Bally's, as well as one-third of the Aladdin's publicly traded bonds. 

"I don't know anything about it," Goeglein said Sunday afternoon from his home, saying he learned of the supposed chain of events earlier in the day from a newspaper reporter. 

"I have no knowledge at all of what the article says." 

According to the Telegraph article, Goodenough's successor, Ron Hobbs, would acquire the 57 percent interest in the Aladdin held by the Sommer Family Trust and would package it with London Club's nearly 40 percent stake. 

Hobbs is a London Clubs board member and chairman and chief executive officer of World Cast S.A., a holding company for a European manufacturer of auto parts. 

The Telegraph article said the daily stress of dealing with the Aladdin's troubles caused serious heart troubles for the 56-year-old Goodenough, contributing to his resignation. 

Goodenough, Sommer Family Trust managing partner Jack Sommer and Aladdin Chief Operating Officer Bill Timmins were unavailable for comment Sunday afternoon. Park Place spokeswoman Debbie Munch said her company does not comment about speculated acquisitions. 

Any buyer of the Aladdin would have to invest a sizable amount of money in the property, said Credit Suisse First Boston bond analyst John Leupp, leading him to question the accuracy of the British news story. 

"In theory, it makes sense," Leupp said, "but it would really surprise me because of the financial issues that need to be dealt with." 

Another key barrier to a deal, Leupp noted, is that a third-party buyer would be required to pay $1.01 for every dollar in bonds issued to finance the privately owned project, according to the terms of the bond deal. The face value of that public debt is $225 million, forcing an outside buyer to pay an estimated $227.25 million to redeem them. 

The Aladdin's bonds have been trading at about 25 cents on the dollar, or well below face value, in a market of few interested buyers. 

Sommer purchased the original Aladdin casino and its 34 acres on behalf of the trust for a reported $80 million in 1994. The 32-year-old casino was closed in 1997 and imploded in 1998. 

Sources say the Aladdin's 2,547-room hotel is making money, but the casino's high-end gambling areas, much of which are operated by London Clubs, have struggled from a thin database of about 350,000 customer names. 

Critics have charged that the Aladdin is fundamentally flawed with a disjointed design that hinders customer foot traffic from one element to the next. They say the property's Harmon Avenue entrance curtails vehicular traffic, while it's difficult for Strip pedestrians to spot its entrance. 

Planning has begun on the redesign of the entrances and driveway to the hotel-casino in a $2 million to $4 million move being headed by local architect Paul Steelman. 

London Clubs has spent about $188 million to acquire its 40 percent share in the Aladdin, which cost about $1.05 billion to build and an additional $300 million for its adjacent shopping mall, which is two-thirds owned by Toronto-based TrizecHahn Corp., with the Sommer Family trust holding the remaining portion. 

The British company operates six casinos in London and controls about 40 percent of that city's gambling market. It also operates two casinos in Egypt and single casinos in South Africa and Lebanon, with another under construction in the Bahamas. 

London Clubs shares closed Friday at 54 cents on the London Stock exchange, up less than 1 cent. The company's shares had peaked at $2.33 in September and dropped to 42 cents in April. 

The total value of the company's outstanding shares was $89.1 million as of Friday. 

Aladdin Gaming has an $8.77 million interest payment due Thursday on its bank debt, and Goeglein declined to say whether it would be made. 

"It's really something I can't say," Goeglein said, noting that the casino company has not missed other recent debt payments. He and several others hold the remaining 3 percent of the company. 

Meanwhile, the Sommer trust and London Clubs continue to negotiate with their bankers to reorganize Aladdin Gaming's loan agreements. 

The megaresort's parent company is required by the loans to pay $8.7 million to eliminate a shortfall in the property's operating funds. That payment was due May 29, but Aladdin bankers have extended that deadline several times so the players can cobble together an agreement. 

-- By Dave Berns and Jeff Simpson 

-----To see more of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.lvrj.com. 

(c) 2001, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. TZH PPE,