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Carnival Corp. is looking to slash borrowing costs with the sale of new junk bonds that would refinance debt that the cruise operator sold at the height of the pandemic at almost triple the cost, Bloomberg News reported. The new offering may be sold as soon as next week, and early pricing discussions are in the 4%-4.125% range. The proceeds will finance a tender offer, launched last week, to buy back as much as half of Carnival’s $4 billion three-year secured notes with a whopping 11.5% coupon. Carnival issued those notes in April of last year to raise cash as cruise travel halted around the globe. If the company were to buy back $2 billion of that debt at a rate of 4%, it would save $150 million per year in interest costs, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The owner and the operator of a bankrupt downtown San Jose, Calif., hotel are now locked in widening and increasingly bitter legal hostilities after the filing of a lawsuit tied to the bankruptcy proceeding, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The conflict between the owner of the Fairmont San Jose hotel has morphed into a full-scale battle after the launch of the litigation, which was filed as a sibling proceeding arising from the ongoing chapter 11 case involving the landmark lodging. SC SJ Holdings, the affiliate led by business executive Sam Hirbod that owns the Fairmont San Jose, filed a lawsuit on June 29 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court against Accor Management U.S., a large company that manages and operates hotels. The lawsuit is asking the court to find that the operator Accor Management has illegally interfered with the owner’s efforts to stabilize and protect the hotel, which has been closed since March 5, 2021, the day that the hotel filed for bankruptcy. The legal battle makes it clear that the hotel’s owner and the facility’s operator have become full-fledged adversaries at a time when the lodging stays closed and its reopening remains in limbo. The lawsuit also disclosed that the hotel’s finances and operations were already wobbly even ahead of the outbreak of the coronavirus that triggered business shutdowns to combat the deadly bug.

The city of Long Beach has gained official, legal control of the Queen Mary following a judge’s approval yesterday in Delaware bankruptcy court, the Long Beach Post reported. Long Beach took physical control of the Queen Mary last month when former leaseholder, Urban Commons Queensway, chose to give up the lease after the ship received no qualified bidders at bankruptcy auction. Long Beach owns the Queen Mary but for years has leased the ship as a hotel and tourist attraction to various operators that have struggled to make a profit. In January, Eagle Hospitality Trust, the parent entity of Urban Commons Queensway, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy with a total of more than $500 million in debt. The city, meanwhile, remains in a legal battle with Urban Commons over a litany of failed lease obligations, with a court hearing scheduled for August. The bankruptcy judge yesterday granted Urban Commons’ request to officially cancel the Queen Mary lease, a move that gives Long Beach complete control of the vessel for the first time in more than 40 years. The city is now tasked with deciding how much to invest in critical repairs for the aging vessel. An inspection report in April determined the ship would need at least $23 million in critical repairs to remain viable in the next two years, while a marine survey released in 2017 found that the ship could need nearly $300 million in critical repairs to stay viable. The ship remains closed to the public as the city plans for millions of dollars in safety repairs.

The XFL and CFL will no longer be pursuing a partnership in the short-term, according to the CFL, which said in a statement on Monday both leagues agreed to move forward separately, USA Today reported. “Our talks with the XFL, exploring the potential for collaboration and innovation, have been positive and constructive," the statement read. "While we remain open to finding new ways to work together in the future, we and our XFL counterparts have jointly decided to not pursue any formal arrangements at this time." In March, the leagues announced they agreed to "collaborate" and "innovate" in a vague description of the partnership. The CFL will return to action Aug. 5 for the first time since 2019, as the COVID-19 pandemic canceled last season and prevented the Grey Cup — the nine-team league's championship — from being played for the first time since 2019. The XFL made its return under former owner Vince McMahon in 2020. But five weeks into the season, the pandemic shut down the campaign. The league, after filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, was sold to Dany Garcia and investors at RedBirdCapital Partners that includes Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for $15 million in August 2020.

The reopening of a bankrupt downtown San Jose hotel that’s been closed since March in the wake of the coronavirus has landed in limbo after a judge’s ruling, the East Bay Times reported. A set of decisions by a bankruptcy judge enables the start of an arbitration proceeding to resolve a dispute between the bankrupt Fairmont San Jose hotel’s owner and the iconic lodging’s operators. “It is likely that a decision will be made by the arbitrator at the end of the next 5 to 6 months, essentially by the end of the year,” said Sam Singer, a spokesperson for the group that owns the double-tower hotel in downtown San Jose. That in turn has left the date and circumstances under which the hotel can reopen up in the air. “We do not have a firm date on the property’s reopening,” Singer said. The 805-room Fairmont San Jose shut its doors in March, around the same time that the hotel’s owners, a group led by business executive Sam Hirbod, filed for a chapter 11 bankruptcy to attempt to reorganize the hotels’ shattered finances. In May, the ownership group picked Hilton Hotels & Resorts as the new manager and operator. “The Hilton bid contemplates that the hotel will assume the name ‘Signia by Hilton San Jose’ or another name that includes ‘Signia’ in it and that it will be managed by Hilton upon its reopening,” bankruptcy court records show. Court papers show that Hilton has agreed to inject about $45.8 million in financing to help stabilize the hotel. JPMorgan Chase Bank has also agreed to provide another $25 million in funding for the hotel to assist its emergence from bankruptcy.