Forward Motions: Revel Looks to Protect New $90 Million Offer

Atlantic City, N.J.’s Revel Casino Hotel heads to court Monday to protect a newly emerged bidder in the event someone else walks away with Revel’s assets.

A week after shutting down operations, Revel said Wednesday that it found a buyer, Polo North Country Club Inc., which has offered $90 million in cash for substantially all of Revel’s assets. It’s still unclear whether Polo and its principal, Florida real-estate developer Glenn Straub, plan to operate Revel as a casino.

As part of the bid, Revel is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J., to approve a $3 million breakup fee for Polo if the transaction doesn’t go through. The company is also asking to schedule an auction for Sept. 24, with competing offers due the day prior.

The Wall Street Journal reported that two other bids have been received that could challenge Mr. Straub’s offer: one from Alex Meruelo, whose California-based Meruelo Group last year made a failed attempt to buy the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City, and the other from activist investor Carl Icahn.

Meanwhile, former women’s clothing retailer Coldwater Creek Inc. is getting ready to finalize the last major step in its bankruptcy—how to pay back unsecured creditors—now that going-out-of-business sales at its more than 300 stores have concluded and secured debt has been paid back in full.

On Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., Coldwater will go before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Brendan Shannon to seek confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan that relies on a portion of the more than $161 million the company raised through two bankruptcy auctions.

Under the plan, unsecured creditors are estimated to receive between 2% and 27% of their claims, filings show, with the exact recovery percentage depending on which of several Coldwater Creek entities owes them money.

An official committee of unsecured creditors initially sought to block the plan but set aside its protest in July in exchange for an extra $5.4 million. The settlement funds came from lenders led by Golden Gate Capital, which agreed to reduce the amount of their $96.5 million claim and waive all unpaid interest accrued since July 1.

Coldwater Creek filed for bankruptcy in April with plans to shut down its stores. Founded in Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1984, the company reached its revenue peak of $1.1 billion in 2006, but a heavy debt load and declining sales weighed on the women’s clothing retailer for years.

Later in the week, Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. will head to court Thursday in Manhattan for the first time since filing a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring plan in August. The hearing will serve as an opportunity for Judge Sean Lane to review the dry-bulk shipper’s bankruptcy-exit plan, which would cut $975 million in debt from its balance sheet.

Eagle Bulk’s lenders, owed $1.2 billion, would convert their debt into 99.5% of the new equity in the reorganized company and receive a cash distribution. Current equity would be canceled, with those equity holders receiving the remaining 0.5% in new stock, along with seven-year warrants to acquire another 7.5% of new equity.

The plan has the support of lenders who hold more than 85% of Eagle Bulk’s outstanding loan debt, according to filings.

Eagle Bulk, which went public in 2005, has been struggling to pay its debt for years. In court filings, the shipper blamed its financial woes on deteriorating charter hire rates in the “highly cyclical” dry-bulk shipping industry.

-Tom Corrigan, Jacqueline Palank and Katy Stech contributed to this article.

Write to Sara Randazzo at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @sara_randazzo.