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Posted At : June 2, 2008 09:52 AM | Posted By : D McKee
Related Categories:
Harrah's,Columbia Sussex,Isle of Capri
Much to the dismay of senior debtholders, perhaps, a Delaware bankruptcy judge OK'd $67 million in additional borrowing by Tropicana Entertainment, money the company says it needs for operational expenses. However, the court backhanded an even bigger loan offer from Canada's Onex Corp.
The latter was what you might call a "hostile" loan. So far only UNLV's David Schwartz has twigged to this story. Basically, Onex would try to roll a $100 million loan into an equity position, as the first step in a takeover attempt. It has even retained former MGM Mirage President Alex Yemenidjian to advise it on casino-sector acquisitions. Had Onex's ploy been successful, I wonder how Yemenidjian's former MGM colleagues would have felt about "Count Dracula" (the nickname he acquired when running the MGM film studio in Hollywood) setting up shop right across the street.
"If [the gambling sector] is overbuilt and in some difficulty right now it's a good time to look at it," Onex CEO Gerald Schwartz told the Toronto Globe and Mail. Onex used the hostile-lending ploy to take over Loews Cineplex Entertainment and he's already signaled that, should the ploy of lending to Columbia Sussex be rebuffed, he'd pursue low-hanging fruit on the Isle of Capri and Harrah's Entertainment vines. $100 million won't get him very far, but if he ups the ante then Isle needs someone to bail it out of its overseas over-extension and Harrah's could use a near-term cash infusion, too.
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