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The owner of the shuttered Cal Neva Lodge & Casino once owned by Frank Sinatra has filed for bankruptcy protection, again jeopardizing plans to reopen the historic resort on the shores of north Lake Tahoe, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Criswell-Radovan, a California-based developer, purchased the property in 2013 with ambitious renovation plans. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency officials hope the developer follows through with plans to reopen the 10-story hotel and 6,000-square-foot casino straddling the California-Nevada border. Criswell-Radovan has canceled numerous announced grand openings for the property over the last several years, most recently this spring. Criswell-Radovan owed more than $27 million last month to creditors affiliated with the project, including $7 million to the lead contractor, the Las Vegas-based Penta Building Group.

Caesars Entertainment Corp. and Caesars Acquisition Co. have amended their proposed merger agreement, which is intertwined with the $18 billion bankruptcy of the casino company's main operating unit, Reuters reported yesterday. The operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co Inc. (CEOC) received approval from a bankruptcy judge last month to begin seeking votes from creditors on its plan to restructure its debt and exit bankruptcy. The bankruptcy plan would slash $10 billion of debt and split the CEOC unit into a new operating company and a real estate investment trust. Caesars Entertainment is contributing billions of dollars of cash and equity to CEOC and that will help repay CEOC's creditors. Some of that cash will be generated by merging Caesars Entertainment with Caesars Acquisition. The merger was originally proposed in December 2014. Under the amended terms, Caesars Acquisition shareholders will receive 27 percent of the merged entity. Under the original proposal, they would have received 38 percent, according to regulatory filings. Caesars Acquisition owns Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas and Harrah's New Orleans, among other assets, which were acquired from the CEOC operating unit before its bankruptcy. The Caesars Entertainment parent has said those acquisitions were done at fair value to relieve the CEOC unit of capital intensive projects. CEOC's junior creditors, led by Appaloosa Management, said those deals stripped billions of dollars of the best assets from the operating unit, leaving it bankrupt.

Workers at the Trump Taj Mahal casino and hotel in Atlantic City walked off the job early Friday morning and took to picket lines after contract negotiations broke down, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Unite Here Local 54, the union representing nearly 1,000 Taj workers, organized the strike after determining that the casino, owned by activist investor Carl Icahn, wasn’t offering a serious proposal to cover their health insurance, union spokesman Ben Begleiter said. The company said in the statement that it was bargaining “in good faith” with the union and threatened that the casino might close as a result of the strike. The Taj wasn’t accepting hotel reservations for the next 10 days on its website as of Friday afternoon. A company official said in the statement that the casino was fully open and welcoming guests through the July 4 holiday weekend and beyond.

About a thousand workers at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, plan to go on strike today ahead of the busy July 4 weekend, another blow to the resort city’s long-struggling tourism business, Bloomberg News reported today. Workers including housekeepers, bartenders, cooks and cocktail servers are seeking higher wages and health care benefits lost when Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. declared bankruptcy in 2014. The Taj Mahal is controlled by investor Carl Icahn. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, no longer has a management role. Talks with Trump Taj Mahal failed to reach an agreement that the negotiating committee could recommend, Unite Here, the union representing casino workers, said in an e-mailed statement Friday. Atlantic City, once the second-largest casino market in the U.S. after Las Vegas, has struggled in recent years as neighbors expanded their gambling offerings. Casino revenue in the city totaled $2.4 billion last year, half the take from ten years ago.

The Missouri hotel company founded by John Q. Hammons, which filed for bankruptcy over the weekend, received court permission yesterday to continue operating its business as usual, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Bankruptcy Judge Robert D. Berger signed off on the company's request to continue using its cash for bills, paying its more than 4,000 employees and honoring customer reward programs. The permission to spend cash was granted on an interim basis, with parties scheduled to return to court July 15 for a final hearing. The John Q. Hammons bankruptcy filing comes ahead of a July 26 trial in the Chancery Court of Delaware to determine whether the company must sell its assets. That litigation is temporarily halted because of the bankruptcy filing. The case in Delaware involves a 2005 buyout of some of the Hammons hotel business by Jonathan Eilian, the former managing director of private-equity giant Starwood Capital Group. Eilian purchased 43 Hammons hotel properties. Hammons, who died in 2013, received an equity interest in the acquiring company, preferred stock valued at $328 million and $300 million in lines of credit in exchange. The deal's complicated structure was devised to provide Hammons with cash without triggering capital-gains taxes associated with a sale, according to court papers.

A privately owned, Missouri-based hotel company founded by John Q. Hammons filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday, just weeks before the start of a trial to determine if the company must sell its hotels, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Friday. More than 70 affiliates owned by the John Q. Hammons trust filed for protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Kansas City, Kan. Based in Springfield, Mo., the company owns and manages 35 hotels for companies like Marriott, Sheraton and Hilton's Embassy Suites. The companies listed assets and debts each of more than $1 billion, according to court papers. The bankruptcy filing involves a group of hotels that Hammons retained ownership of after the 2005 buyout of his hotel business by Jonathan Eilian, the former managing director of private-equity giant Starwood Capital Group. The 2005 buyout involved some 43 hotels owned by John Q. Hammons Hotels. Hammons himself received an equity interest in the acquiring company — a partnership with Eilian — as well as preferred stock valued at $328 million and some $300 million in loans.

Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar allowed the casino operating unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp. to begin seeking creditor votes for a plan to exit its long and contentious $18 billion bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. A confirmation hearing will begin on January 17, 2017, two years after the company filed for chapter 11 protection. The bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) has been rocked by creditor accusations that the nonbankrupt Caesars parent looted its operating unit of choice hotel and casino assets before the latter's January 2015 filing for chapter 11 protection. Caesars has denied wrongdoing. It offered to contribute roughly $4 billion to CEOC's bankruptcy plan to settle the allegations after an independent examiner said it could be on the hook for up to $5.1 billion. Following intense negotiations with creditors, CEOC lawyers said yesterday that they have made "significant progress" in obtaining pledges of support for the reorganization plan, which will slash $10 billion of debt and split the unit into a new operating company and a real estate investment trust.

SFX Entertainment Inc.’s bondholder-supported restructuring agreement has fallen apart, a plan that looked to eliminate $300 million in debt and provide the electronic-music concert producer with a quick path out of bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The company announced on Friday that its agreement had terminated and added that the development allows it to pursue “more comprehensive negotiations with all of its constituents with the goal of developing a consensual Plan of Reorganization.” The supporting bondholder group will continue to work with SFX and the committee representing unsecured creditors, SFX said. Originally, SFX said it hoped to complete its chapter 11 case within six months. However, in its announcement Friday, it said there is no timeline for negotiations but that it hopes to work quickly. SFX filed for chapter 11 protection in February with a plan to eliminate $300 million in debt from its balance sheet.