Caesars, Creditors Reach Restructuring Deal

Caesars Entertainment Corp. said Tuesday that it has reached a deal to resolve the long-running battle over the $18 billion restructuring of the casino company's main operating unit.

The deal, outlined in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, brings the major creditors of the operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., or CEOC, on board with its restructuring plan. The latest version of the proposal will offer an improved payout for the junior bondholders that had fought the plan, while other creditor groups will see the same or smaller payouts than previously proposed.

Specifically, the junior bondholders can expect to recover about 66 cents of every dollar they are owed, up from about 27 cents under a prior restructuring plan. Unsecured creditors' recoveries will also rise to about 66 cents.

Senior lenders and senior bondholders will still recover 115 cents and 109 cents on the dollar, respectively, the filing says. A smaller group of bondholders will see their recoveries fall by about one cent to 83 cents on the dollar.

Restructuring talks were to have wrapped up last week, but in light of the "significant progress" made in recent days, Caesars said Monday that they were ongoing.

At the heart of the CEOC restructuring plan is a settlement of lawsuits against Caesars, its private-equity backers—Apollo Global Management and TPG—and others. For months, junior bondholders had refused to support the restructuring pact and settlement, arguing Caesars and its backers were getting the benefit of broad liability releases without providing fair consideration in return.

Caesars said Tuesday that CEOC plans to submit a revised restructuring plan for bankruptcy-court approval. The restructuring remains subject to other conditions, including regulatory approval.

CEOC sought chapter 11 protection in January 2015 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago.

Write to Jacqueline Palank at jacqueline.palank@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 27, 2016 10:35 ET (14:35 GMT)

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