Tilman Fertitta in Talks to Buy Caesars for $7 Billion After Topping Bid From Icahn
Billionaire’s Fertitta Entertainment has been discussing paying around $34 a share
Updated March 12, 2026 2:32 am ET
Caesars runs more than 50 resorts, including under its namesake Caesars brand. George Rose/Getty Images
Billionaire Tilman Fertitta has been in exclusive talks to buy Caesars Entertainment CZR 11.76%increase; green up pointing triangle for roughly $7 billion after he topped a competing offer from billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
Fertitta’s company, Fertitta Entertainment, has been discussing paying around $34 a share for the betting company, the people said. Caesars shares closed Tuesday at $26.01, giving the company a market value of over $5 billion.
Caesars shares closed up nearly 12% Wednesday at $29.07 after The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks.
An announcement between the two sides isn’t imminent, and it is possible the talks won’t result in any deal, some of the people cautioned.
Caesars had also received an all-cash offer of around $33 a share from Icahn Enterprises IEP 1.87%increase; green up pointing triangle, the publicly traded company that houses the investment of Icahn, a Caesars shareholder, some of the people said. Icahn Enterprises’ offer hasn’t officially been rejected by Caesars, they added.
Fertitta’s business is behind the Golden Nugget casino chain, the restaurant giant Landry’s and other hospitality and gaming monikers as well as the NBA’s Houston Rockets.
Caesars runs more than 50 resorts, including under its namesake Caesars brand, Harrah’s, Eldorado and Circus Circus. Shares in Caesars and its betting peers have sagged in recent months as investors digest the potential threat to their businesses prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi pose.
Vici Properties, the real-estate investment trust that was spun off in Caesars’ bankruptcy proceedings in 2017 and counts Caesars as a major tenant, had been viewed as a potential roadblock to a deal. Some potential buyers who aimed to split off the company’s digital gaming business had assumed that any deal would require Vici’s signoff, some of the people said.
But the proposals from Fertitta and Icahn Enterprises both involve structuring the deal in a way that would allow the company to be split up without Vici’s consent, those people said. Caesars Chief Executive Tom Reeg would likely be involved with either bid, some of the people said.
Vici’s shares closed down roughly 3% Wednesday after the Journal’s report.
Caesars shares had been down roughly 40% over the past year before the Financial Times reported in late February that the company was attracting takeover interest from Fertitta and a group that included management. Caesars shares closed up nearly 19% the day of the report.
Caesars was taken private in a leveraged buyout in 2008 led by Apollo Global Management and TPG. Caesars’ operating unit emerged from bankruptcy in 2017, after having been saddled with debt from that deal.
Icahn took a stake in Caesars in 2019 and pushed for a sale of the company. Eldorado Resorts acquired Caesars in 2020, and Reeg, its longtime head, became CEO of the combined company.
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Appeared in the March 12, 2026, print edition as ‘Fertitta In Talks To Acquire Caesars for $7 Billion’.
Lauren Thomas is the lead reporter on M&A and shareholder activism for The Wall Street Journal in New York. She consistently breaks market-moving news about the biggest deals across all industries. Some of her scoops have included the $55 billion leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts, Union Pacific’s more than $70 billion deal for Norfolk Southern, Exxon Mobil’s $60 billion deal for Pioneer Natural Resources, Google parent Alphabet’s $32 billion deal for Wiz, Mars’s $30 billion deal for food maker Kellanova, and Sycamore’s $10 billion take-private of Walgreens. She also frequently scoops the biggest proxy fights in corporate America, including recent battles at Starbucks, Disney and Southwest Airlines.
Before joining the Journal in October 2022, Lauren covered the retail and consumer industries at CNBC. There, she broke news on companies ranging from Target to Macy’s to Peloton, and she regularly appeared on CNBC TV programming.
A native of Spartanburg, S.C., Lauren graduated with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied business journalism and Spanish.Follow
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