Caesars Entertainment Corp is suing some institutional investors in New York state court in Manhattan in the U.S. claiming they tried to push a unit of the casino company into default on a portion of the group’s US$20 billion debt, reports Bloomberg News.
The outlet said the suit claimed the investors were attempting to thwart the firm’s restructuring efforts.
Caesars is a joint venture investor in a planned casino resort at Incheon, South Korea and told GGRAsia in July that it hopes to open the first phase of the venue by 2018.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the court filing – made on Tuesday – followed another suit on Monday.
That action by a representative of junior bondholders of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co Inc accused the Caesars group of moving assets between entities to protect its “good” assets from creditors.
Caesars’ case is also against a group of junior bondholders, and claims they tried to push the same unit – Caesars Entertainment Operating Co – into default by intervening in the company’s restructuring efforts.
Private equity firms Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG led an approximately US$30 billion leveraged buyout of Caesars Entertainment – known until November 2010 as Harrah’s Entertainment Inc – in 2008.
Caesars has long coveted a casino operation in Asia. It tried to parlay a Macau golf course into a casino project, but in August last year sold the 70-hectare (175-acre) Caesars Golf Macau to local investors for US$438 million, only 24 percent below the US$577 million Harrah’s paid for it in 2007.
