{"id":14272,"date":"2014-08-06T11:08:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T19:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14272"},"modified":"2014-08-06T11:08:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T19:08:35","slug":"good-caesars-and-bad-caesars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/good-caesars-and-bad-caesars\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Caesars and Bad Caesars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"caesars-palace\"<\/a>That’s how a bondholder lawsuit distinguishes<\/a> between Caesars Entertainment Operating Co<\/strong>. and Caesars Growth Partners<\/strong>. It castigates the toga-clad companies for — for instance — transferring Caesars Interactive<\/strong> (worth<\/em>: $779 million) “for little or no consideration.” Similarly, Octavius Tower<\/strong> and The Linq<\/strong> were to be traded for a pile of bank debt until a bondholder’s complaint caused some cash to be tossed into the transaction as mitigation.<\/p>\n

The crux of the bondholders’ complaint is that Caesars is shuffling valuable collateral<\/a>, in the form of assets like Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong>, into affiliates where they will be protected from an eventual crash-and-burn of CEOC. Caesars counters by saying that the litigants are trying to force a default because they stand to benefit from it. Caesars also takes umbrage at them for having used various public forums<\/a>, including regulatory hearings and the media (what nerve!) to make their case.<\/p>\n

\"Gary_loveman_Cropped_fmt\"<\/a>\u201cThe meritless actions taken by the defendants impede our ability to conduct rational negotiations with holders to further improve [Caesars’]\u00a0financial condition,\u201d proclaimed CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong>. Rejoined bondholder attorney Bruce Bennett<\/strong>,\u00a0“The complaint demonstrates that [Caesars] has made numerous transfers over the past several years that worsened its already distressed financial condition and were abusive to its creditors.”<\/p>\n

Fitch Ratings<\/strong> executive Michael Paladino<\/strong> was totally unsurprised that the increasingly ugly tussle has landed in court.\u00a0“It’s among the most complex\u2014if not the most complex\u2014credit situations in leveraged finance,” he told the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

* Having gone from george to stiff, Tilman Fertitta<\/strong> now faces a renewal of a lawsuit brought against the Golden Nugget Atlantic City<\/strong>. Back in \"Tillman-Fertitta-hs_rgb\"<\/a>2012, the Nugget carelessly put unshuffled decks of cards into mini-baccarat shoes. When 14 players got wise to the repetitive card sequence they upped their wagers and took the house for $1.5 million. At first, Fertitta was inclined to pay the players. However, he reneged when some of them wouldn’t drop their counterclaims against the Nugget. At that point he went all Indian-giver, suing\u00a0to reclaim the $500,000 the casino had already paid out.<\/p>\n

The Nugget was absolved of repayment obligations by Atlantic County<\/strong> Superior Court Judge James Isman<\/strong>, but he’s since retired and his successor, Judge Allen Littlefield<\/strong>, has restarted the discovery process with an eye toward a fall trial date. Fertitta has already lost this case once and things aren’t looking good the second time around. The Nugget has nobody to blame but itself for the mini-baccarat fiasco. S&G<\/i> thinks the players won fair and square, and are entitled to the rest of their winnings. If the Nugget had been more diligent they wouldn’t have taken it to the cleaners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s how a bondholder lawsuit distinguishes between Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. and Caesars Growth Partners. It castigates the toga-clad companies for — for instance — transferring Caesars Interactive (worth: $779 million) “for little or no consideration.” Similarly, Octavius Tower and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,7,37,84,9,129,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14273,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14272\/revisions\/14273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}