Shane Smith, the co-founder and chief executive of Vice Media, has taken his place among the high-rollers in Las Vegas after winning $1m at the Bellagio casino.
He then spent $300,000 of his winnings on a meal for more than 30 employees and business partners.
The lavish meal at Bellagio’s Prime Steakhouse took place during the Consumer Electronics Show. It included bottles of wine costing $15,000 each and was so expensive it merited a mention on the quarterly earnings call of MGM Resorts, the group which owns the Bellagio and other Las Vegas casino hotels.
The most expensive food item on the menu at the Prime Steakhouse, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, is a 28-ounce bone-in rib eye for $85.
Jim Murren, MGM Resorts chief executive, said he had not seen a meal with such a hefty price tag since 2007. “It tells you there is a release valve that has opened,” Mr Murren said. “That isn’t a trend, but it’s a sign people are ready to spend money again.”
Despite the meal's eye-watering price tag, Mr Smith is not the biggest spending media chief executive to play the Las Vegas tables. Kerry Packer, the late Australian billionaire, was a regular in Las Vegas and was known to bet as much as $150,000 a hand. His visits to casinos often made the difference between gaming operators reporting profits or losses in their quarterly earnings.
Mr Smith declined to comment on the meal.
However, Vice Media is not lacking in confidence. The youth-focused company will go on a “deal spree” in 2015 and explore an initial public offering if market conditions remain favourable, Mr Smith told the Financial Times in December.
The company has strengthened its senior management team with the appointment of James Schwab, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, as co-president, who will help oversee a $500m “war chest” for content, technology and distribution deals.
“Vice will go on a deal spree in 2015,” said Mr Smith. “Our war chest is the size of the full valuation of our competition so we will see some major ... deals happen.”
The $500m fund came from A&E Networks, which invested $250m in Vice recently for a 10 per cent stake, valuing the company at $2.5bn. Technology Crossover Ventures, the Silicon Valley fund that has stakes in Facebook and Netflix, also invested $250m in the group.
Vice, which in 2013 also took a strategic stake from 21st Century Fox, wanted to stay independent, said Mr Smith. “We would be stupid not to think about an IPO.”
The company has recently been engaged in a war of words with Gawker, a rival site, which has in several stories accused Vice of underpaying its employees. Vice hit back in a blog post, accusing Gawker of “garbage, click-bait journalism” and “inaccurate and irresponsible” reporting.
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