By Katy Stech
Wednesday in Chicago, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. will
seek to keep a tight grip on its bankruptcy restructuring. The
casino operator is asking judge to extend the period that its
lawyers have to file a reorganization proposal before the field
opens up to proposals from other groups.
Caesars is asking Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar to extend that plan
filing deadline until Nov. 15. Such requests are common in
bankruptcy cases, especially one as complicated as Caesars, which
is trying to restructure more than $18 billion in debt.
Caesars has already filed a reorganization proposal, but
independent examiner Richard Davis is now probing the company's
prebankruptcy transactions with non-bankrupt parent company Caesars
Entertainment Corp. His job is to conduct a wide probe into
prebankruptcy transactions made between CEOC and its parent. In
several lawsuits, creditors have said Caesars entities shifted good
assets away from them to benefit its owners, including
private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LP. At least seven
transactions between 2009 and 2014 have been questioned.
Caesars has said the transactions were proper, designed to
manage and improve CEOC's debt load and liquidity. Most parties
want to wait until the report is finished before deciding on the
current proposal, the Caesars' bankruptcy lawyers said.
"These Chapter 11 cases are also among the largest and most
complex ever filed," Caesars said in earlier court papers.
Among the properties included in the bankruptcy filings are most
of the Caesars Palace Las Vegas, two casinos in Atlantic City,
N.J., and a dozen Harrah's or Horseshoe casinos in smaller U.S.
markets such as Tunica, Miss., and Reno, Nev.
Silverware and giftware designer Reed & Barton, a
190-year-old Massachusetts company that filed for bankruptcy in
February, could find new owners at an auction on Tuesday.
Reed & Barton's lawyers got at least one bid to challenge a
$15 million offer-in-hand from competitor Lifetime Brands, Inc.
Reed & Barton sells flatware, crystal drinkware, picture
frames, Christmas ornaments and baby giftware.
The lawyers didn't identify new bidders in its notice filed to
the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston. Lead bidder Lifetime Brands
distributes tableware and cookware including the Farberware,
KitchenAid, Mikasa, Pfaltzgraff and Cuisinart lines.
The family-owned Reed & Barton has moved its manufacturing
overseas, mostly to Asia. Its manufacturing facility in Taunton,
Mass., factory--built with silver handrails on the staircases--was
identified as contaminated in 1990 and is undergoing an expensive
cleanup.
The company has also struggled to get a grip on pension
liabilities of $18 million and a drop in orders. About 40% of the
company's sales were made to Costco, QVC, Macy's and
Bloomingdale's.
Reed & Barton says that Lifetime's offer is enough to pay
off more than $6 million in lender and trade debt. Any
auction-winning offer will still need approval from Judge Henry J.
Boroff.
On Wednesday, the Nevada-based seller of zNose machines, which
can detect traces of cancer, explosives and palm tree fungus, could
get the permission it needs from a judge to get out of bankruptcy
protection.
Electronic Sensor Technology Inc. said that its bankruptcy-exit
plan will give the company a fresh financial start to pursuing new
ways to use its zNose machines, which they said can pick up on
soft-tissue carcinomas that indicate lung cancer and breast cancer.
The plan needs approval from Judge Peter Carroll of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in Santa Barbara, Calif.
In court papers, Electronic Sensor lawyers said that only one
creditor voted against the plan, which promises to pay creditors
15% of what they are owed or alternately, will give them an
ownership stake in the company.
Electronic Sensor filed for Chapter 11 protection on Oct. 23
before it could finish switching to focus on the health-care
industry, saying it needed a $1.9 million bankruptcy loan to
survive. The zNose machine's sales have been flat during the last
three years after falling 70% from a sales peak of $2.2 million in
2008, according to court papers.
Formed in 1995, Electronic Sensor hasn't made money yet on the
sale of chemical-vapor detection instruments, which can pick up on
compounds in concentrations so small that they are measured in
parts per trillion. Under the company's reorganization plan, its
current ownership, which is divided among about 45 investors, would
be canceled.
--Patrick Fitzgerald and Joseph Checkler contributed to this
article.
Write to Katy Stech at katy.stech@wsj.com
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