Posted on Tue, Nov. 24, 2009
LAS VEGAS - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has offered a higher sum than Penn National Gaming Inc. to open bidding at a bankruptcy auction for the unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino-resort on the Las Vegas Strip.
A clerk in Miami for U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge A. Jay Cristol says Icahn offered $105 million Monday to buy the project from debtors plus $51.5 million in funding to resume construction, which already has cost more than $2 billion.
Penn initially offered $50 million for the resort, which was about 70 percent complete when developers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June.
An auction will be held Jan. 21, with bids due Jan. 15 and qualifying bids announced by Jan. 19.
Icahn is the head of a group of creditors who are buying the Tropicana Casino & Resort in Atlantic City. The group, which holds a $1.4 billion mortgage on the casino, will swap $200 million in debt for ownership.
Wyomissing, Pa.-based Penn National Gaming runs Freehold Raceway in New Jersey, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, near Harrisburg, and other gambling sites.
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