A New Jersey Bankruptcy Court judge has ruled that the Revel Casino and Hotel will go to auction on September 24. Judge Gloria Burns in Camden, New Jersey made the ruling on Monday, despite expressing her desire to postpone it another week.
“I’m not sure that extending the timing will make all that much difference,” Burns said, referring to creditors attracting additional bidders for Revel.
Multiple reports indicated that the hearing, which lasted for over four hours, was marked with plenty of litigation threats by Florida developer Glenn Straub if the auction was postponed for the third time. Straub offered to buy Revel for $90 million but was prepared to not only walk away from his bid if the auction was postponed but also pursue a legal case to recoup the $10 million deposit he paid as part of his bid. That’s money Revel couldn’t stand to lose at this point, forcing creditors to agree to Straub’s demands.
“If that’s the schedule this buyer insists upon, we’re just going to have to hope that someone comes in and outbids him,” Warren Usatine of Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard P.A. of Hackensack, N.J, told The Inquirer. Usatine is an attorney who represents the unsecured creditors committee in the Revel bankruptcy.
In addition, Straub and his attorneys also got Judge Burns to require Revel to pay Straub a $3 million break-up fee if his bid doesn’t win the auction. The $90 million offer will be set as a baseline for the auction. Straub remains the favorite to buy Revel but there appears to be a growing number of interested parties looking to make their own bids during the action.
“We do see a lot of activity coming out of the woodwork now,” Revel’s Chief Restructuring Officer Shaun Martin said.
Judge Burns was told that another unidentified party has expressed its intent to bid on the property after reaching out to the US Bankruptcy Court before the Monday hearing began. “This is the first time in this case there seems to be a buzz going on,” the judge said.
His attorney told the judge that should Straub’s bid win the auction, parts of the building could reopen a couple of weeks after the sale. He told reporters that a casino likely would operate in the building at some point, although his bid does not include a requirement that his company be licensed to run a casino.
“We don’t want a vacant building when winter comes,” Stuart Moscovitz, an attorney for Straub, told the court.
