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Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., will ask a bankruptcy court judge on Tuesday to approve a $110 million sale to Brookfield Property Partners, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Brookfield Property Partners was declared winning bidder on Wednesday at the end of a three-day auction for the property that began last week and continued into this week. But a Florida real-estate developer has vowed to continue to fight Brookfield for the property. Glenn Straub, who led the bidding for Revel, said the bid from Brookfield was conditioned — a violation of the casino’s court-approved bid rules. Straub started bidding at $90 million in cash and was bid up to $95.4 million before he was topped by Brookfield’s $110 million offer. Built at a cost of $2.4 billion, 47-story beachfront tower made its boardwalk debut in 2012 but failed to turn a profit, filing its second chapter 11 case in June.

A bankruptcy judge said yesterday that Energy Future Holdings Corp. doesn't have to name names of the contenders as it searches for a lead bidder to open an auction for rights to its valuable Oncor stake, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The ruling from Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi means that unhappy creditors won't get a peek behind the curtains of a process that they say could cost them billions of dollars. "The identity of bidders and bid details are off the table" as creditors question company officials in advance of an Oct. 17 court session where Energy Future will seek approval on rules for the auction, Judge Sontchi said at a hearing yesterday.

Brookfield Asset Management has won the auction for Atlantic City's bankrupt Revel Casino Hotel, Reuters reported today. The company bid $110 million for the casino complex, topping a $90-million bid by Florida real estate developer Glenn Straub, who did not submit a superior bid by 5:00 a.m. ET. Revel Casino, which cost $2.4 billion to build, opened in 2012 and closed on Sept. 2. Revel Casino had agreed to use Straub's initial bid to set the benchmark for other potential buyers. Straub had said that he wanted to create a university at the site to attract the world's brightest minds to tackle social problems such as hunger. The case is In re: Revel AC Inc., U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey, No. 14-22654.

As Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. began its final descent into bankruptcy late last year, the cupcake maker’s newly appointed chief executive, Ed Slezak, implemented a new strategy to help boost the company’s revenue: Sell Crumbs-branded products at everyday stores like Target and BJ’s Wholesale Club, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Crumbs collaborated with companies to create mass-market cupcakes and bake-at-home Crumbs mixes, but the new ventures had only been rolling a few months when Crumbs abruptly closed all its stores and sought Chapter 11 protection in July. Now, with the majority of Crumbs’ assets sold to a partnership between CNBC reality show host Marcus Lemonis and Dippin’ Dots owner Fischer Enterprises that plans to relaunch Crumbs stores, the companies that struck those licensing agreements questioned how to go forward during the bankruptcy proceeding. A bankruptcy judge in New Jersey considered that question yesterday in response to an urgent request from Houston-based Coastal Foods Baking, a commercial bakery that said the Lemonis-Fischer group sent it a cease-and-desist letter Sept. 23 to prevent it from fulfilling new orders for Crumbs-branded baked goods. With hundreds of cupcakes already in the process of being made at the time the letter came, Coastal Foods President and Chief Executive William Evans said in a court filing that it will “have to destroy the food product” and eat $45,850 in costs if Lemonis-Fischer doesn’t back down. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan told Coastal Foods during a contentious hearing yesterday that it could fill the two new cupcake orders, though any further production must wait until the parties determine whether Coastal Foods still has any rights under the licensing agreement and whether the licensing agreements were included in the bankruptcy sale.

The Florida developer who entered the first bid in an auction for Atlantic City, New Jersey's Revel Casino Hotel, which closed its doors this month, said yesterday that he plans to challenge the results if he loses, because the process lacked transparency, Reuters reported yesterday. The comments, by Glenn Straub, come as the auction for Revel, Atlantic City's newest casino complex, is scheduled to resume today. The auction started last week with a $90 million cash bid by Straub but adjourned for the Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday. Straub complained the bidding lacked transparency and he did not even know how many qualified at last week's bid deadline, or how their proposals were being valued. Revel's attorney, John Cunningham with White & Case, called the allegations "entirely false."

Atlantic City, N.J., will have to wait until next week to learn who will emerge as the next owner of the shuttered Revel casino hotel, a sleek resort that closed after just two years in operation, Reuters reported yesterday. An auction began yesterday at a law office but was adjourned until Tuesday, according to Revel spokeswoman Lisa Johnson. Glenn Straub, a Florida developer with a passion for polo, provided the initial bid at $90 million in cash to acquire the complex free of debt. At least two other potential buyers presented bids on Tuesday, a source told Reuters. It is unclear how many parties qualified to join the auction.

Nortel Networks Corp. bondholders and pensioners made their final pleas to judges in Canada and the U.S. about how to divide more than $7 billion in cash the company raised by liquidating assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. U.S. bondholders of the defunct phone maker urged the two judges to focus on legal precedents, regardless of the effect on 56,000 Nortel retirees in Canada and the U.K. The pensioners, who are fighting each other as well as the bondholders, asked the judges to impose a fair division that avoids the “extreme outcome” of paying 11 percent on some retiree claims and more than 100 percent to some U.S. investors. With their courtrooms linked by video, Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware, and Frank Newbould, a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto held a three-day joint hearing. They will rule separately on how to divide the money. Judges Gross and Newbould asked the lawyers whether any parties would object if the judges decide to talk to each other about the case. Under Canadian and U.S. law, they are required to reach independent decisions.

Phoenix Payment Systems Inc. won bankruptcy-court approval to sell its payment-processing business to an affiliate of North American Bancard LLC for $50 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath on Tuesday approved the sale, court papers show. The buyer was the stalking-horse bidder for a proposed auction, but Phoenix Payment Systems canceled the auction after no qualified competing bidders emerged.

At least two last-minute bids were received yesterday for Atlantic City's Revel casino, which closed this month, setting up an auction to challenge an agreed sale to a Florida developer, Reuters reported yesterday. Bidding on the two-year-old casino, which cost $2.4 billion to build, will start at $94 million. Revel's owner obtained a stalking-horse cash bid of $90 million from Glenn Straub, a Florida developer.

California's Alecto Health Services said it has purchased Fairmont General Hospital , bringing the West Virginia's hospital bankruptcy case to an end, the Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Fairmont lawyer Mike Garrison of the law firm of Spilman Thomas & Battle said Monday in an emailed statement that Alecto, which paid $15 million for Fairmont, completed the sale last week. Fairmont, which filed for chapter 11 protection last September, is exiting bankruptcy not only with a new owner, but with a new name: Fairmont Regional Medical Center. (Subscription required.)
http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFDBR0120140923ea9nje6fq…

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