The bankruptcy proceeding involving casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp’s main unit officially entered comedic territory on news that Caesars’ junior creditors had sued the company’s senior creditors.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that a group of bondholders representing the bottom tier of Caesars lenders had filed a lawsuit against creditors in the top- and middle-tiers. The suit, filed on Friday in Chicago, argues that collateral pledges supporting billions of Caesars’ debt are legally suspect and should be overturned.
In case you’ve been in solitary for the past couple years, Caesars put its heavily indebted main unit into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January, but not before controversially shifting most of its profitable assets into other divisions and reneging on billions of dollars in debt obligations to junior creditors. Caesars has proposed a restructuring that junior creditors believe gives senior creditors a break at the junior creditors’ expense, a situation that has already sparked lawsuits o’plenty.
Despite the development, Caesars shares rose 11% on Monday, which demonstrates either that optimism isn’t quite dead in this sorry world or that P.T. Barnum was a shrewd judge of humanity.