\nWayne Parry, Associated Press <\/p>\n
\tCAMDEN, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Nineteen would-be buyers of Atlantic City\u2019s former Revel Casino Hotel have expressed interest in acquiring the shuttered seaside gambling hall.<\/p>\n
\tTo them, Revel\u2019s lawyers had a simple response Thursday: Show us the money.<\/p>\n
\tA federal bankruptcy court judge will decide Friday whether to approve its sale. Glenn Straub\u2019s Polo North Country Club has an $82 million deal to buy the casino from Revel AC. The casino cost $2.4 billion to build.<\/p>\n
\tBut even if Judge Gloria Burns sanctions the sale, the contract contains a loophole that allows Revel to accept a better offer if one comes along before the scheduled March 31 closing date.<\/p>\n
\tAt least two other would-be buyers have said they want to be considered: Los Angeles developer Izek Shomof and New York private equity investor Jeffrey Keating.<\/p>\n
\tRamy Ibrahim, senior vice president of Revel\u2019s investment bankers Moelis & Co., said Thursday that 19 parties had contacted the firm since last week, including seven new would-be bidders who had not previously been heard from. Of the seven, Ibrahim said, \u201cNone of them were able to validate who they were, who they were representing. In our opinion, at the end of the day, they were not real buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tStuart Brown, an attorney for Revel\u2019s power plant, said he has spoken with five other potential buyers \u201cthat Moelis doesn\u2019t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThomas Kreller, an attorney for lender Wells Fargo, urged the judge to approve the one and only deal that involves actual money; Straub has put the entire $82 million purchase price in an escrow account.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cRight now, there is nothing else out there,\u201d he told the judge. \u201cThe $82 million is the bird in the hand. Quite frankly, there is nothing in the bush.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tRevel attorney John Cunningham also urged the judge not to wait for potential offers from \u201cillusory buyers\u201d who thus far have refused to put up any money.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe can\u2019t send this estate down the rabbit hole of no buyer, no purchaser, just a total train wreck,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tKurt Wynne, an attorney for Shomof, said that scenario has already occurred. He asked the judge to leave the door open for his client, who he insisted remains interested in Revel.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt already is a train wreck,\u201d Wynne said. \u201cThe only question is \u2018Can we put the fire out?’\u201d<\/p>\n
\tShomof hadn\u2019t submitted a bit as of Thursday and did not respond to follow-up requests from Moelis, Ibrahim said.<\/p>\n
\tKeating told The Associated Press he is putting together a private equity group to buy Revel, reopen it as a casino and add amenities, including amusement rides and a Ferris wheel.<\/p>\n
\tStraub said he is the only one to put money on the table.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI keep waiting for the elevator doors to open and somebody to walk out carrying bags of money,\u201d Straub told the AP before the hearing began. \u201cWe keep hearing about people with money wanting to make bids. I haven\u2019t seen them yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wayne Parry, Associated Press CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) \u2013 Nineteen would-be buyers of Atlantic City\u2019s former Revel Casino Hotel have expressed interest in acquiring the shuttered seaside gambling hall. To them, Revel\u2019s lawyers had a simple response Thursday: Show us the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}