Fontainebleau Las Vegas company files Chapter 11 – Houston Business Journal:

Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC and two of itsaffiliateas – Fontainebleau Las Vegas Holdings LLC and Fontainebleau Las Vega Capital Corp. – filed bankruptcy petitions in Miamoilate Tuesday. The Miami Beach hotel is not included in the The company said in a news release that the decisiohn to file Chapter 11 was the direct resulf of litigation with lenders on the Las Vegasd hotel construction project that had to do with contractual disputesa related tonearly $800 million in construction fundin for the $2.9 billion resort-casino project, which is 70 percent complete. Lenders include , and Deutsche Bank Trusr Co. Americas.
The legal disput e has effectively shut down the projectand “put thousands of people out of said Howard Karawan, chief restructuring officet of Fontainebleau Las Vegas, in the “Our goal now is to securse funding to complete this world-class projecgt and restructure our existing debt.” Fontainebleau Las Vegas reached a provisionao agreement with a group of its non-defaultingy lenders for the use of cash for the administratiohn of its bankruptcy case, and is in negotiationss to obtain financing to restart construction on that project. Fontainebleau Miami Beach, which is a separate legalk entity, continues to operatse as normal.
Turnberry West Construction, the project’x general contractor, is also not included in the according to thenews release. In 2008, Nakheel Hotelws of Dubai bought a 50 percent interest in the Fontainebleau Miamiu Beachfor $375 million. The Las Vegasw hotel companies that filed bankruptcy are basedc in South Florida because the Soffer familhyof Aventura, which also owns the Turnberruy development and construction companies, owns all the Fontainebleau Jeffrey Soffer is a principal of umbrellsa company Fontainebleau Resorts LLC, according to stats records.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas also withdrew withouyt prejudiceits $3 billion lawsuit in Las Vega against some of its and refiled the case in Miami bankruptcuy court, where the Chapter 11 petitions were The lawsuit with lenders was amendes on May 12 to include allegations that Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas was “seeking to destroy the Fontainebleai in order tominimize competition” with the nearbuy and Casino, which is whollgy owned by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary. "This clainm is an attempt by the Fontainebleau'sz developers to distract from the fact that they have breachedr theirloan covenants.
We will defend ourselvez vigorously against this meritless Deutsche Bank spokesman John Gallagher said inan e-mailee response. Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC lists morethan $1 billionm in debt and a similar amount in assets on its with more than 1,000 The only South Florida creditor listed was International Bedding in Fort Lauderdale, with a claim of
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