Revel sale deal not final yet

Florida property developer Glenn Straub may have thought his sale agreement and payment of $82 million to the owners of the bankrupt Revel building in Atlantic City sealed the acquisition deal (see previous reports) but on Wednesday Judge Gloria Burns refused to ratify the sale and extended the sales window by a further week.

The reason for yet another delay in this long-running story is that a new player in the form of Los Angeles property developer Izek Shomof has rather belatedly flagged an interest.

That Judge Burns granted the extension despite Shomof’s so far unofficial bid being $2 million lower than Straub’s has mystified many of those who have been following the controversial sale of the Revel skyscraper, built just two years ago for $2.4 billion.

And as Straub’s legal representatives have already pointed out, Shomof’s bid is at present informal and comes with no firm proposals or guarantees.

Shomof, on the other hand, justifies the extension by saying that his experts were only recently furnished with financial information and given permission to take a look at the property in order to prepare a detailed offer.

Judge Burns said Wednesday that in granting a further week before confirming any sale she was giving Revel AC and potential bidders time to work out the best possible deal for the casino complex.

Any deal will impact existing restaurant and other leaseholders presently occupying the building, and there remains the matter of millions of dollars owed to the building’s power generating company.

“If there is something else out there, if you could come up with an offer that’s more palatable to the objectors, maybe they won’t object,” Judge Burns said, setting a new hearing for March 12.

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