The energy arm of private equity giant Blackstone Group LP is objecting to Optim Energy LLC’s plan to exit bankruptcy through the sale of its two Texas power plants that it says is designed to benefit only Bill Gates’s private investment firm, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Optim is controlled by the Microsoft co-founder’s Cascade Investment, which has been funding the company’s operations and is backing the chapter 11 plan based on the power plant sales. Lawyers for Walnut Creek Mining, a subsidiary of Blackstone Energy Partners, say that the proposed sale been designed “by and for the benefit of Cascade and Cascade only” and that Optim’s plan shouldn’t win court confirmation. “Congress did not design chapter 11 as a one-way street for the sole lender/equity owner to get all sorts of benefits, including releases, at the effective expense of one creditor,” Walnut Creek’s lawyers said in bankruptcy court papers filed on Wednesday.
