%1

The threat of bankruptcy by Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s main operating unit was a key reason the Las Vegas-based gambling company didn’t win a license to operate a casino in New York state, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The state panel that recommended license winners in December said in a report released Friday that bankruptcy may have been a distraction to Caesars management, damaged the reputation of gambling in New York and kept customers from visiting the company’s proposed $880 million resort-casino. Caesars proposed developing a casino about 50 miles north of New York City, which would have among the closest to the largest U.S. metropolis. The state is moving forward with three licenses, while opening up bids for a fourth in the region along the Pennsylvania border. None of the licenses will be in Orange County, where Caesars sought to build.

Puerto Rico's debt-laden power authority, Prepa, said on Friday that it will hold off on presenting a restructuring plan as it tries to secure an extension of an agreement from creditors not to foreclose on its $9 billion in debt, Reuters reported. The current agreement, which expires on March 31, had called for a deadline today for Prepa to unveil a proposal to restructure about $9 billion in debt. But it will miss that deadline, Lisa Donahue, Prepa's chief restructuring officer, said in a statement. “We have made significant progress" to negotiate an extension of the forbearance agreement, "but there is more work to do and as a result, we have not yet finalized a plan to present to the forbearing creditors." Donahue said she told creditors Prepa "would not satisfy this milestone," and that creditors do not plan to call a default as a result of the delay.

A Pittsburgh-based robotics firm appears to be emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after four months, the Pittsburgh Business Journal reported today. Seegrid Corp. has raised $11 million in an equity round, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Seegrid had filed filed for chapter 11 protection last October, listing outstanding debt of $48.3 million in court documents. Earlier this month, a Delaware court paved the path for Seegrid's largest shareholder and lender, supermarket Giant Eagle Inc., to reorganize the company and allow it to emerge from bankruptcy.

A unit of GameStop Corp., the video-game chain, won an auction for the right to take over more than 160 stores that bankrupt consumer-electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. was planning to close, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. In court documents filed on Wednesday, RadioShack said that GameStop’s Spring Communications Holding Inc. will pay $15,000 a store to take over leases at locations around the U.S. Spring has about two months to decide which of the stores it wants. RadioShack filed for bankruptcy this month with an agreement to sell about half of its 4,000 stores to a unit of Standard General LP, its biggest shareholder. Standard General, in turn, has a co-branding agreement with Sprint Corp.

Solus Alternative Asset Management LP said its proposal to pump $2 billion into LightSquared is better than the plan the company has presented, which involves little new money and puts the company in the hands of investors including Centerbridge Partners LP and Fortress Investment Group LLC, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The LightSquared proposal "unfairly discriminates" against other creditors in favor of Fortress, Centerbridge and an entity controlled by JPMorgan Chase & Co., Solus said in one of its two Wednesday filings. Solus wants its proposal to be heard on the same timetable as the LightSquared plan. Judge Shelley C. Chapman yesterday denied Solus's request to shorten the timetable for its plan, but did say that it can be discussed at a hearing next Wednesday.