Restructuring Pros Revel in Conference Site

The Revel resort and casino in Atlantic City, N.J., hopes to check out of bankruptcy by the end of May. A few weeks later, a group of corporate restructuring professionals will check in.

The Chesapeake, New Jersey and Philadelphia chapters of the Turnaround Management Association are hosting their 11th annual mid-Atlantic regional conference at Revel this June 12-13 and next summer, according to conference co-chair Steven F. Agran.

There, turnaround consultants, investment bankers and other restructuring professionals will gather to network over cocktails and golf, learn about new developments in their field and hear from local bankruptcy judges—all at a very appropriate spot.

“We picked the hotel last year” when there were “obvious mumblings” about the resort’s distress, Agran told Bankruptcy Beat Monday Tuesday. “We knew that was the potential.”

Seasoned restructuring pros that they are, Agran and his fellow conference organizers signed a two-year contract to bring their conference to Revel after several years at the Borgata. He said there haven’t been any issues since the resort’s March 26 bankruptcy filing, which the resort is hoping to conclude by the end of May—several weeks before the conference.

Still, when a bunch of restructuring pros gather under the roof of a building that sought shelter in Chapter 11, it’s bound to come up.

“We’ve gone back and forth on the question of: How do you handle that we’ve got a restructuring conference at a hotel casino that filed for bankruptcy?” said Agran, a managing director in turnaround consulting firm MorrisAnderson.

The answer they arrived at is to let the resort focus on its bankruptcy…for now. Next year, however, Agran said conference organizers are considering asking Revel officials to dish about its restructuring before what would likely be a captive audience.

“It would be interesting to our membership to learn a little bit from the inside…to have a discussion with us on their experiences with the bankruptcy and the emergence and the year in review,” he said.

Write to Jacqueline Palank at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @PalankJ.