resort owners in Vegas. First off he looks like a person who gauged the market perfectly in selling the New Frontier and the land it was on in July 2007, setting a record for Strip acreage. Ruffin thus marked the very top of what was now clearly a real estate bubble. It will be recalled that Ruffin scored over a billion on that transaction, and the buyer quickly tore down the New Frontier announcing grand plans for a megaresort, followed by delays. To this day, nothing is happening on that land, pending financing.

Then Ruffin, late last year, surprised everyone by purchasing Treasure Island from cash-starved MGM-MIrage for under a billion. So he essentially traded the aging New Frontier for the vastly better-constructed and -placed TI with a few hundred million in spare change on the trade. In an earlier interview, with the Buffet, Ruffin said he did not think the bottom had been reached quite yet in the real estate market on the Strip. And now he has found a way to prove himself right with a final  move on the transaction for TI that could save him yet another $20 million on the purchase. How? Because MGM-Mirage is even more cash-strapped this year than last year. Or, at least, that company is less proud in 2009 than 2008, and more willing to admit what anyone who can read a newspaper knows.

Taking advantage of that situation, Ruffin, without changing the sale price for TI, only altering the payment procedure, has agreed to try to throw $100 million more cash upfront in the transaction with the resort giant, and in exchange MGM-Mirage has agreed to charge him $20 million less for TI. That should give you a hint of how dear cash right now is to MGM-Mirage. Anyway, if he can pull it off, this is a great bonus in an already good deal for Ruffin. But I should not be surprised at this point that Ruffin was right again about the future of Strip economics. And I therefore take it as a good sign for the future of Vegas that he has chosen now to return to running a resort in Vegas by investing so much back into the Strip.

Photo: Treasure Island. Credit: Sarah Gerke