Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s highest-ranked lenders spurned the casino company’s efforts to restructure its most indebted unit, imperiling tentative agreements reached over three months of talks with a broader group of creditors, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. KKR & Co. and Franklin Resources Inc. were among holders of the company’s bank loans that exited the confidential negotiations, said two people with knowledge of the matter who didn’t want to be named because the creditors weren’t publicly identified. BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset manager and an owner of the company’s first-lien bonds, also left the talks. The casino operator has been working to seal an agreement with its creditors to put the Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. unit and its $18.4 billion of debt into chapter 11 bankruptcy by Jan. 15. The subsidiary would then be split into a real estate investment trust that owns its properties and another unit that would manage them.
