Yesterday, it became clear that all efforts, Florida developer Glenn Straub put into acquiring the shuttered Revel casino turned out to be useless.
Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns announced that the deal between Mr. Straub and the current owners of Revel is to be terminated. The final say of the judge brought the saga with the acquisition of the venue to an end.
After a great number of setbacks and issues Straub had to deal with, Judge Gloria Burns announced her final decision. She also added that the reason why she allowed the deal to be terminated was the violation of Mr. Straub.
People familiar with the matter reminded that he was supposed to obtain the property on February 9th but Revel’s tenants made him request two more weeks for clarifying the situation. Then, everything went in the wrong direction and market analysts suspected that the former casino might be put up for sale for the third time.
Formerly, Revel was supposed to be acquired by the Canadian company Brookfield Asset Management for the sum of $110 million but they walked out of the deal due to the expensive maintenance of Revel’s power plant.
Then, Glenn Straub, who was a runner up in the auction, expressed his interest in buying the property but unexpected circumstances have befallen the deal and at the end of the day, it was terminated.
The attorney of Glenn Straub, Mr. Moskowitz, said that yesterday’s ruling will be appealed.
In point of fact, if Mr. Straub acquires Revel, such a deal will be really beneficial to the well-being of Atlantic City whose financial condition is not too optimistic anyway.
So, Glenn Straub would turn Revel into a genius academy, Atlantic City officials will not have to think about the utilization of the property and a financial aid will be provided to the struggling local economy.
However, there is another side of the coin. For the time being, Mr. Straub is the only investor willing to acquire Revel. If the ruling is not appealed and the deal is terminated indeed, it will take an indefinite period of time for Revel to find its new owners, which would expectedly result in million-dollar losses for Atlantic City.
Meanwhile, Revel will keep the deposit given by Glenn Straub although Judge Gloria Burns ordered the sum to be held in escrow.
As for the new potential owners of Revel, no company has officially expressed its interest in Revel’s acquisition so far but Shaun Martin, the Chief Restructuring Officer of the shuttered casino shared that there are “a lot of inquiries”.
He also said that if Revel fails in finding its new owner soon, there is a high probability for being forced into liquidation.
