Moroccan-themed Sahara is the northernmost casino on the Strip and was featured in the 1960 film "Ocean's Eleven." SBE Chief Executive Officer Sam Nazarian's Los Angeles-based hospitality and entertainment group and Stockbridge, based in San Francisco, bought the property in 2007. They announced plans to redevelop and "reinvigorate" the Sahara, before the financial crisis triggered record gambling, convention and housing declines in Las Vegas, stalling most development.

ACQUISITIONS

Valero buying Chevron refinery

Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. oil refiner, agreed to buy Chevron Corp.'s British refinery and 1,000 retail outlets for about $1.73 billion in cash, gaining its first European plant.

The Pembroke refinery will add 26 cents a share to annual profit based on 2010 market prices, Valero said Friday. The purchase is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval. The Welsh refinery is capable of processing 270,000 barrels a day, San Ramon's Chevron said in a separate statement.

WORKERS

Oracle chief pushes for H-1B boost

Oracle Corp. Co-President Safra Catz said that obtaining U.S. visas for foreign workers is too complex and that the government hurts job creation by making it expensive to repatriate overseas cash.

Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker, aims to fill more than 1,000 open positions in the United States, Catz said during a conference at Stanford University.

"Our No. 1 focus is always an educated workforce," Catz told the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. "People flock here to get educated." Reforming the process for foreign workers to obtain work visas is taking too long, she said.

Technology companies want the United States to increase the number of H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers beyond its current limit of 65,000 a year. Catz, Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Chambers and other U.S. business executives have also lobbied for a tax holiday for repatriated earnings. The money, currently taxed at a federal rate of as much as 35 percent, could be used to create jobs and invest in plants and equipment, the executives have said.

This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEMC-XFXZHSHB1xtcHH_mtFhvDJ-Q&url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%252Fc%252Fa%252F2011%252F03%252F11%252FBUP11I9DU0.DTL

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