Hamptons McMansions Herald a Return of Excess

But there is no surer sign that the big-spending ways that characterized the pre-financial crisis era have returned to the Hamptons than the blue “Farrell Building” signs multiplying across the pristine landscape here, along with the multimillion-dollar houses they advertise. It is a process some are calling “Farrellization,” and not necessarily happily.

“We’re as busy as we’ve ever been,” said Joe Farrell, the president of Farrell Building, during a recent interview and tour of his $43 million, 17,000-square-foot home here. The estate, called the Sandcastle, features two bowling lanes, a skate ramp, onyx window frames and, just for fun, an A.T.M. regularly restocked with $20,000 in $10 bills.

To spend a day with Mr. Farrell — a local version of Donald Trump, without the history of debt, the lush hair or the insults — is to see just how fully the Hamptons have rebounded, along with the confidence, and the bonuses, of their wealthier summer visitors.

With a customer base composed largely of Wall Street financiers, Mr. Farrell has more than 20 new homes under construction, or slated for construction, at a time, making him the biggest builder here by far. He has plans for more, many of them speculative homes built before they have buyers.

He said the going rate to rent his own home was around $500,000 for just two weeks; last year’s tenants were Jay-Z and Beyoncé. He also helped arrange a $900,000 summer rental for the hedge fund manager Marc Leder, who has since drawn scrutiny from Southampton authorities — and gossip writers — for boisterous parties that draw an endless stream of black S.U.V.’s.

Of course, the Hamptons’ wealthier enclaves did not exactly suffer through the great recession in the true sense of the word. Foreclosures hit lower-priced areas, but they were relatively few in the supermansion neighborhoods of Water Mill and Sagaponack. Many owners who were in real trouble were able to sell, if only at reduced prices. The summer rental market dipped, but scores of houses were still renting, for the equivalent of the national median annual salary.

But many Hamptons-goers were wary of flagrant spending, out of either anxiety or decorum. So, Porsche and yacht sales slowed. High-rolling holders of black American Express cards tossed them around less frequently. And the practice in nightclubs of offering V.I.P. treatment to those willing to buy bottle service — entire bottles of alcohol, at a huge markup — fell out of favor, a development marked by the 2009 closing of the Southampton club that was known for it, Pink Elephant.

Now local Porsche and yacht sales are climbing once again, and Pink Elephant reopened this summer in East Hampton offering Methuselah (six-liter) bottles of Dom Pérignon for $30,000. It is not just a novelty; the club’s co-owner David Sarner said Pink Elephant had sold “a few” this season, and many more “trains” of smaller Dom Pérignon bottles for as much as $8,000. “It was a bit lean for a couple of years in the Hamptons,” Mr. Sarner said in an interview, acknowledging that the term is relative. “There’s this at least perception that we’re doing a lot better than perhaps we were, so people are freer to spend money because they’re being psychologically conditioned with the highs in the market.”

This is not to say that appetites here have not been affected at all by the recession that was.

“Houses have gotten smaller over all but not entirely: 8,000 square feet was the norm, now 6,500 is,” Mr. Farrell said. “Everyone wants six or seven bedrooms and their pool and their tennis.”

Where Mr. Farrell built speculative homes that sold for as much as $20 million before the recession, he now specializes in properties that sell for between $3 million and $10 million. “Mostly, though, $3 million to $6,” he said. “I love that market — there are probably 10 times as many people in that market than to buy an eight- or nine-million-dollar house, right?”

Crowds Return to Las Vegas, but Gamble Less

These days, jobs are back, the housing market is bustling and people are moving back. The number of visitors hit a record last year. For anyone seeking evidence that the nation has survived this recession, look no farther than the sidewalks of Las Vegas Boulevard, where people were shoulder to shoulder the other day even as temperatures surged past 110 degrees.

But the recovery in Las Vegas — much like the one lifting the nation — is shaping up as fragile and tentative, stirring concern among economists and many of the region’s biggest boosters. And it is signaling what appears to be a fundamental reordering of the economy in this closely watched part of the country.

More than 39.7 million visitors came here in 2012, a record. But those visitors spent notably less money per trip than during the last upturn — $1,021 per visit last year, compared with $1,318 spent by each of the 39.2 million visitors in 2007, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority — a sobering asterisk that has led many analysts to conclude that this high-rolling city is entering a less prosperous era.

The total revenue from gambling and entertainment other than gambling was $15.3 billion in 2012, $500 million less than was spent in 2007.

“The Strip is absolutely packed, downtown is packed,” said David G. Schwartz, the director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “People are here. But they aren’t spending as much as they used to.”

A shift in the structure of the economy that began about a decade ago appears to have accelerated. Gambling is no longer king. A new influx of tourists, younger and less devoted to gambling, are likelier to open their wallets for extravagantly priced nightclubs and day clubs, which have joined concerts and musical shows, high-end restaurants, luxury shopping and some of the more exotic types of entertainment this city is renowned for offering.

From the Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s 23rd-floor bar the other evening, with its desert views and $18 specialty cocktails, the new building-size digital billboards that loom over the Strip flashed out advertisements not for the slots, but for Tiesto, the D.J. playing at Hakkasan, a 75,000-square-foot nightclub where reserving a table for the night can cost $10,000 and more.

“Gaming went down more than total visitor spending, by a greater percentage,” said Stephen P. A. Brown, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The visitors who have come back are here for clubs and shopping. They’re buying swimsuits to go to the day clubs and evening clothes to go to the nightclubs. That’s the big growth.”

“I think what’s going on here is we’re seeing a shift away from Las Vegas as the only gaming destination in the United States to being one of many gaming destinations,” Mr. Brown said. “But it is holding up as a tourist destination.”

In 1984, the city’s sprawling casinos accounted for 59 percent of all the money collected on the Strip. Last year, gambling made up just 36 percent of the revenue. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, took in $9.4 billion in gambling revenue last year, up from the year before but still far short of the $10.8 billion during the peak year of 2007, according to statistics from the Center for Gaming Research.

Beyond tourism, the baseline statistics of economic growth give reasons for both hope and concern, analysts said. Home prices jumped by 15.3 percent in the Las Vegas metropolitan region this year, according to the Case-Shiller home price index, but still remain 56 percent below their peak in 2007. Jobs grew last year at a rate of 2.6 percent, compared with 1.7 nationally, but that is short of the 3.7 percent average growth rate posted during the boom years of 2001 through 2007.

And there are potential problems ahead. Many analysts here argue that the super-hot housing market amounts, yet again, to a bubble, and are girding for another collapse in prices. Some of the biggest casino owners, including MGM and Caesars Palace, are saddled with debt.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

BP to Return $8 Billion to Investors

The company completed the sale of its stake in the venture, TNK-BP, to Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, on Thursday for $12.48 billion in cash as well a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft.

The $8 billion is roughly the equivalent of what BP originally paid for its 50 percent of TNK-BP in 2003. Over the last 10 years BP also received $19 billion in dividends from the venture, the company said.

BP said the remaining $4.48 billion from the stake sale would be used to reduce debt.

The buyback is about twice as large as analysts were expecting, said Andrew Whittock, an analyst at Liberum Capital in London, in a research note.

BP shares closed up 1.85 percent in London trading on Friday but remain about 30 percent below their level before the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill as investors worry about the company’s potential liabilities in the United States.

The company’s chief executive, Robert W. Dudley, who has led BP since October 2010, said in a statement that the buyback was expected to exceed what was required to offset the earnings-per-share dilution as a result of the TNK-BP sale.

He said the buyback also reflected the reduction in BP’s size after its $38 billion in divestments, excluding TNK-BP, over the last three years. BP has been selling assets as part of an effort to raise cash to pay for liabilities resulting from the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11 people and spewed millions of barrels of crude oil.

At a news conference Thursday at BP’s headquarters in London, the two companies announced that Mr. Dudley would be nominated to join the Rosneft board. BP will also have an additional seat on the board.

Rosneft also bought the remaining 50 percent of TNK-BP on Thursday from a group of Russian oligarchs for $27.7 billion.

An ebullient Igor I. Sechin, Rosneft’s chief executive and an influential government official in Russia, said the two companies were already looking into what projects BP could collaborate on with Rosneft. “We are going to work definitely with BP offshore,” he said. “We are definitely going to avail ourselves of the experience and competencies of BP.”

Mr. Dudley said that Mr. Sechin had gone without sleep for about 40 hours in working to complete the transaction.

He said that the global oil and natural gas industry was changing and that new technologies gave Russia the opportunity to exploit “more expensive” methods to develop resources, like offshore oil, shale gas and tight oil, which is produced using techniques similar to those used to produce shale gas.

Mr. Dudley suggested that he was not troubled by the fact that Rosneft already had important strategic ventures in the Arctic with BP competitors — Exxon Mobil, Statoil and Eni. “We all applaud Rosneft’s progressive approach of strategic ties with international oil companies,” he said.

As a significant minority shareholder in Rosneft, BP will benefit from these ventures, Mr. Sechin said.

Media Decoder: Anderson Cooper Talk Show Won't Return for a Third Season

Ali Goldstein/Warner Brothers Anderson Cooper during a taping of his show “Anderson.”

The syndication arm of the Warner Brothers studio has decided that there will not be a third season of “Anderson,” the daily talk show hosted by Anderson Cooper.

Citing disappointing ratings, a studio executive, who insisted on not being identified because the studio had planned no official release on the decision, said on Monday that the entire talk television market has been struggling to build audiences. Mr. Cooper’s show, which is produced by Telepictures, will end after the summer of 2013.

The executive spoke because some of the stations that have been carrying Mr. Cooper’s show have begun making feelers about replacement shows, and the news was certain to leak out through one of them, the executive said.

The Warner Brothers syndication unit issued a statement on Monday:

“We are extremely proud of Anderson and the show that he and the entire production team have produced. While we made significant changes to the format, set and produced it live in its second season, the series will not be coming back for a third season in a marketplace that has become increasingly difficult to break through. We will continue to deliver top-quality shows throughout next summer.”

Mr. Cooper released his own statement:

“I am very proud of the work that our terrific staff has put into launching and sustaining our show for two seasons. I am also grateful to Telepictures for giving me the opportunity, and indebted to viewers, who have responded so positively. I look forward to doing more great shows this season, and though I’m sorry we won’t be continuing, I have truly enjoyed it.”

The decision was not a reflection of any lack of faith in Mr. Cooper, the executive said, but an acknowledgement of the business realities in daytime talk television.

The studio “could have renewed the show but could not create a viable economic business model to move forward,” the executive said.

Even Katie Couric’s much anticipated new talk show has not yet emerged as a bona fide hit, the executive said. And new shows with other hosts, including Jeff Probst and Ricki Lake, have fared poorly.

But Mr. Cooper, who is also a mainstay in prime time on CNN, had been expected to be a star in daytime talk when his show started last fall. After one year with sub-par ratings, the studio and Mr. Cooper instituted a series of changes including stressing same-day tapings as often as possible to deal with breaking subjects, and a new location for the studio.

Mr Cooper was on assignment for CNN in New Jersey Monday, covering Hurricane Sandy.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

Morrison & Foerster Readies Singapore Return

Morrison & Foerster is returning to Singapore after a three-year hiatus.

The San Francisco-based firm is finalizing the necessary regulatory approvals for what will initially be a two-partner operation, and expects to launch early next year.

Asia managing partner Eric Piesner, currently based in Tokyo, will relocate to Singapore to lead the office. Fellow Tokyo partner Eric Roose will also make the move.

Piesner heads Morrison & Foerster's Asia real estate practice and focuses on advising banks and other institutional investors on major property deals. Last December, he advised Singapore-listed Global Logistics Properties on a $1.6 billion joint venture with China Investment Corp. to acquire warehouse properties in Japan.

Roose is a leading international tax specialist who joined Morrison & Foerster last year from the Tokyo office of White & Case.

The firm closed a previous Singapore office, which opened in 1997, in 2009. It is not alone in rethinking Singapore, though. U.K. firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer last month announced its own return to Singapore, after closing there in 2007.

Piesner says a growing amount of legal work at the firm -- from dispute resolution and private equity to mergers and acquisitions and tax -- has a "Singapore nexus" and many of the firm's clients are there, Piesner says.

"We see that part of the world as important for our clients and ourselves," he says.

The firm will start with corporate, real estate, tax, fund formation and private equity, according to Piesner, but intends to add dispute resolution, energy and project finance. A number of associate transfers to Singapore are expected once the office has been established, and Morrison & Foerster intends to recruit lateral hires as well.

The new office will operate under a foreign-law license, and will not practice Singapore law. Morrison & Foerster did not apply for a Qualifying Foreign Law Practice license, Piesner says.

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