Judge approves Revel sale to reluctant buyer at $95.4M

A bankruptcy judge in Camden said Monday that she would approve the sale of Revel AC Inc. for $95.4 million to Florida investor Glenn Straub, rejecting Straub's effort to pay only $87 million.

The next step is a sale order, which must be signed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria M. Burns, but negotiations over the terms of that order - particularly how concerns of tenants and others will be handled - bogged down during a break.

Burns asked attorneys for Revel, Straub, and other parties to work on a sales order to be filed this week, in time to be considered at a Revel hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Once a sale order is signed, the sale of the property, built at a cost of $2.4 billion, is expected to close within 30 days, according to the asset purchase agreement.

Straub's attorney, Stuart Moskovitz, argued that the sale process in September and October was not fair and that Straub should be able to pay the lower price. Otherwise, he said, Revel should be put up for another auction.

Burns rejected those arguments, pointing out that she had considered those objections in October when she approved the sale of Revel to Brookfield Asset Management for $110 million.

"I get it. Everybody wants to pay as little as they can," Burns told Moskovitz.

Straub filed a U.S. District Court appeal of the sale of Revel to Brookfield. That appeal was moot after Brookfield walked away, losing its $11 million deposit.

Moskovitz said Monday that he would ask for a U.S. District Court stay of any order approving the sale to Straub, but during a break Moskovitz said he did that strictly to protect Straub's rights.

"We're not going to make any decisions today," Moskovitz said.

Straub, who has said that Revel is just one small piece of a real estate empire he is building in Atlantic City, would not say what he would do with Revel.

The company through which Straub would buy Revel is named Polo North County Club Inc., perhaps playing on the name of Straub's Palm Beach Polo & Country Club in Wellington, Fla.

For now, Straub's focus seems to be on attempting to gain whatever leverage he can with the beleaguered Revel, which has had a tumultuous trip through bankruptcy.

At one point, Straub handed a folded piece of manila paper to Moskovitz, who soon after that suggested that Polo North's asset purchase agreement was invalid because the sale to Polo North hadn't closed within 30 days of the entry of the Brookfield sale order.

After a break to examine the asset purchase agreement, Burns came back to the bench and said that reading was not correct: "It would make the whole agreement nonsensical."