%1

Hollywood’s Todd-Soundelux LLC, which until its shutdown provided postproduction sound effects for movies and television shows, is selling a collection of sound effects to the highest bidder at a Nov. 13 auction, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bids are due Nov. 5 for the company’s Hollywood Edge sound effects library and website. Users pay a licensing fee to download sound effects appropriate for everything from a light rainstorm to an alien invasion. The Haunted House collection features such sounds as “spooky blood-curdling screams,” “graveyard” and a “haunted monster cave.” Todd-Soundelux will ask a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge to approve the winning bid at a hearing to follow next month’s auction.

A bankruptcy judge will rule next week if Energy Future Holdings Corp., a bankrupt Texas power company, can conduct an auction for its power distribution business, which is likely worth billions of dollars, Reuters reported yesterday. "I believe the record is sufficiently dense and the issues sufficiently important that I need some time to digest that and make a reasoned ruling," said Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi. His comments concluded four days of testimony and arguments on the company's request to start an unusual auction process. The judge said he will read his decision from the bench on Nov. 3. The company framed the proposed process as an opportunity to maximize the value of its 80 percent indirect stake in Oncor, a non-bankrupt affiliate that operates the largest network of power lines in Texas.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. idled 353 slot machines with names such as Top Dollar, Jackpot, Loveboat and Dangerous Beauty when it closed its Plaza casino in Atlantic City, N.J., after declaring bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Now the company is betting it can squeeze a bit more value from the slots by selling the machines and unloading the cost of securing, maintaining and storing them. The company asked Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross for permission to sell the slots for $146,650 to Patriot Gaming & Electronics Inc., with offices in New Gretna, New Jersey. That works out to about $415 each for Patriot, which repurposes and distributes used slot machines, according to its website. The slots “are no longer necessary” for business and will help “obtain meaningful value” for creditors, Trump Entertainment said in an Oct. 24 filing.

The losing bidder in a bankruptcy court auction for Atlantic City's former Revel Casino Hotel isn't ready to fold just yet, as an attorney for Florida developer Glenn Straub has filed an appeal in bankruptcy court to try and stop the sale of the Revel to Brookfield Asset Management, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported today. Revel's management chose Brookfield as the winner with a $110 million bid earlier in October. But Straub claimed that the auction was rife with improprieties. "We believe this entire auction was done improperly, from start to finish,” said Straub's attorney Stuart Moskovitz. Among the developer's main complaints was that Revel improperly accepted a bid from Brookfield after a specified deadline. He also claims that Revel's attorneys reneged on an agreement to share information with him on competing bids, and that the casino unjustly held six hours of closed-door meetings on what was supposed to be the first day of bidding.

Energy Future Holdings squared off against creditors in court on Friday as the bankrupt Texas power company sought approval to begin a multibillion dollar auction of its interest in Oncor, a power transmission business, Reuters reported on Friday. The company anticipates an auction in February, and sources told Reuters that potential bidders include NextEra Energy Inc. of Juno Beach, Fla., Hunt Consolidated Inc. of Dallas and Houston-based Centerpoint Energy Inc. Energy Future is not selling Oncor, but the right to own an 80 percent stake in Oncor, which operates the largest network of power lines in Texas and is closely watched by regulators. Creditors opposed the structure of the proposed auction because they said that it would lock the company into a reorganization that would provide billions of dollars of tax benefits for one group of senior lenders.

Ailing battery maker Exide Technologies could be up for sale before Christmas if it can't come to terms with key creditors on a chapter 11 bankruptcy-exit plan, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Lenders have agreed to extend the maturity date on bankruptcy financing, but required Exide to agree to an "orderly sale process" if it can't finalize a plan-support agreement by Nov. 17, according to court papers filed on Monday.

Bankruptcy lawyers who are preparing to sell Source Home Entertainment's manufacturing division, which makes 60 percent of U.S. retailers' checkout-counter displays, said that there won't be much left from the sale for unsecured creditors who are owed money by the Florida company, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a proposed payout plan filed on Monday, Source Home Entertainment lawyers said that unsecured creditors should expect to be repaid less than 1 percent of what they are owed by the company, which filed for bankruptcy after shutting down its magazine- and book-distribution business — its biggest division — and laying off more than 5,000 workers in late May.

An affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management got court approval to buy Atlantic City, N.J.’s shuttered Revel Casino Hotel for $110 million in cash on Tuesday after a judge rejected complaints the auction for the bankrupt complex was tainted, Reuters reported yesterday. "I have heard evidence to satisfy me that the sale to Brookfield should be confirmed," said U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Gloria Burns at the hearing in Camden, N.J. The Canadian investment firm's Brookfield Property Partners picked up the 1,400-room beachfront hotel and casino for a fraction of the $2.4 billion it cost to build. Glenn Straub, a Florida developer who was outbid by Brookfield, blasted the auction as unfair because it was declared over at 5 a.m. on Oct. 1 when he needed more time to put together a bid of up to $140 million.

Revel AC Inc. should reopen bidding for its Atlantic City casino, which Brookfield Property Partners LP won at auction last week, according to a Florida investor who claimed that he was cheated of a chance to make a higher offer, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Revel, which cost $2.4 billion to build, closed last month after two years of unsuccessfully trying to make a profit in the struggling New Jersey gambling center. It accepted a $110 million offer from Toronto-based Brookfield on Oct. 1 after an all-night auction. Glenn Straub, owner of the Palm Beach Polo Golf and Country Club in Wellington, Florida, protested the way the auction was handled, saying in a court filing Oct. 5 that Revel broke an agreement to provide details about competing bids. Straub also said a “life or death” medical issue hindered his ability to counter Brookfield’s winning offer. The sale is scheduled to go up for approval today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey.

Comcast Corp. took its fight against the sale of the Texas television channel that broadcasts Major League Baseball's Houston Astros and the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets to the courtroom, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur began hearing arguments on Monday over whether Comcast SportsNet Houston can get out of bankruptcy by selling itself to DirecTV and AT&T Inc. Under the proposal, the channel would not repay a roughly $100 million loan that Comcast extended to get the network started in 2012.