Bargaining begins for 3 Trump casinos

CAMDEN, N.J. - Both sides in the battle to buy Trump Entertainment Resorts and its three Atlantic City casinos out of bankruptcy are digging deeper in their pockets to try to make it happen.

Donald Trump and the bondholders whose $1.25 billion investment he had hoped to wipe out have both increased their offers.

The bondholders have raised their offer to $225 million - well in excess of what the real estate mogul and reality TV star has offered to regain the gambling company he once ran.

And Trump, who is bidding with help from his daughter Ivanka and Dallas-based Beal Bank, offered nearly $13.9 million in cash to bondholders during a bankruptcy court hearing Wednesday in Camden.

At least a little sweeter than his previous pitch, which would send bondholders away empty-handed, the total Trump-Beal offer now stands just under $114 million.

Federal bankruptcy judge Judith Wizmur heard the latest offers on Wednesday and set Jan. 20 as the first of five possible days of hearings to pick a plan to get the company back on its feet.

She refused a request by Trump and Beal to knock the bondholders' offer out of the running.

Mark Juliano, CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts, said there are crucial differences in the way the deals are structured.

"You have to look at how much money is staying in the company for the company to use," he said after Wednesday's hearing. "Some of the money the bondholders put up is paying down Beal debt, which wouldn't be available for us to use."

In contrast, he said, the Trump-Beal offer would provide $100 million for the company to use.

"We've always been of the opinion that the Trump-Beal plan offers the best opportunity for the company to emerge from bankruptcy with the proper capitalization and give us an opportunity for future growth," he said.

Kris Hansen, an attorney for the bondholders, said Wednesday morning that they had boosted their offer by $50 million to $225 million to address concerns some parties had about financing the purchase in part by selling the struggling Trump Marina Hotel Casino.

A proposed sale of that casino to Richard Fields, a former protege of Donald Trump, fell through earlier this year.

"Nobody seemed to believe the Marina sale would close," Hansen said. "We believe it would, but we're putting in an extra $50 million so they don't have an argument."

The bondholders stand to lose almost $1.25 billion under the Trump-Beal plan, which the company chose earlier this year. Bondholders then got Wizmur to allow them to present a competing offer.

Trump Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 protection in February, the third time it or its corporate predecessors had done so.

The company had been struggling with crushing debt that became even more painful when the economy soured and competition from slots parlors in Pennsylvania and New York increased, siphoning away some of Atlantic City's best customers by offering them places to gamble closer to home.