What: Shares of gaming giant Caesars Entertainment Corp (CZR) jumped as much as 27% today after the company announced a preliminary agreement with some debt holders over restructuring.
So what: Caesars management says that a "significant amount of CEOC's second-lien notes" have greed to a new restructuring plan. CEOC -- Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. -- is Caesars Entertainment's largest operating unit and it's currently in bankruptcy proceedings, so Caesars is trying to come up with a restructuring plan to save the company.
There's a lot of urgency on this because tomorrow a judge will rule whether lawsuits challenging the creation of multiple subsidiaries to hold valuable assets outside of CEOC will be allowed to go forward while bankruptcy proceedings take place. If they can move forward, Caesars Entertainment will likely be pulled into bankruptcy.
Now what: This latest offer at least gives second-lien note holders something to think about, but there's not an agreement with a large enough group of these holders to go forward, at least not yet. At the end of the day, I think Caesars Entertainment will still be pulled into bankruptcy because note holders will likely get a better deal if they win the other lawsuits and all of Caesars' assets are on the table to split up among debtors.
If that happens, today's pop could be reversed tomorrow, only worse. I'm not betting on restructuring at Caesars Entertainment and investors would be wise to stay away from this failing company as well.
