Excalibur Completes Purchase of Race Track, Resort

Excalibur Holding Corp. said Wednesday that it has completed its planned purchase of a Thoroughbred race track and gambling resort in West Virginia.

Excalibur, an investment company based in Irvine, said it bought Mountaineer Park on Dec. 4, exchanging $90,909 and 551,514 shares of Excalibur’s common stock for all the outstanding stock of Mountaineer Park Inc.

As part of the transaction, Excalibur said, it paid $3.5 million in cash and 60,605 shares of Excalibur stock to retire almost all of Mountaineer Park’s bank debt and also issued 417,558 shares of stock to satisfy another $1.9 million in debt.

Company officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Mountaineer Park, in the city of Chester, consists of a one-mile track, a 101-room lodge, off-track betting, simulcast video of out-of-state racing, a nine-hole golf course and tennis facilities.

West Virginia officials agreed last month to allow Excalibur to take over operation of the horse-betting and on-line lottery machines at Mountaineer. As a condition of approval, the state required Excalibur to sell its stake in gambling facilities being developed on an Oklahoma Indian reservation. Officials said they feared that Excalibur could somehow use its involvement in Indian tax-exempt gambling to avoid paying West Virginia taxes.

Excalibur said it obtained the money to buy Mountaineer from its October purchase by stock trade of Golden Palace Casinos Inc. in Minneapolis. Golden Palace’s assets included about $3.2 million in cash and cash equivalents.

As a result of the two recent transactions, Excalibur will have about 10.6 million shares outstanding. About 41% will be held by the former stockholders of Golden Palace Casinos, and 9% by people associated with Mountaineer Park.

Excalibur’s common stock and warrants began trading on the NASDAQ market on Dec. 7.

In Wednesday’s trading, the stock closed unchanged at $7.25 a share.