In an SEC filing today, Morgan Stanley announced that it was putting the controverisal Revel casino up for sale.
“Morgan Stanley’s total investment in Revel, which is included in the Company’s consolidated statement of financial condition as of February 28, 2010, approximated $1.2 billion,” the firm told MarketWatch. “It is anticipated that the disposition of Revel will result in a substantial loss of that investment.”
“Doherty, Pennacchio, Lonegan, Ingle and their ilk are no doubt happy, but the big, big losers are Atlantic City, the construction trades, the unemployed in the Atlantic City area and the economy of the State of New Jersey,” said state Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth), who drove legislation to bail out the sputtering casino project.
Opponents of the legislature’s thumbs up to the $350 million taxpayer bolster for Revel restated their case now that Morgan Stanley is done with the project.
“It now makes less sense then ever for the state to be bailing out this project,” said Ben Begleiter, spokesman for UNITE Here, one of a grassroots blender of organizations in opposition to the bailout. “We’d be giving tax rebates to an investor that bought the casino on the cheap.”
