A subsidiary of hotel owner Columbia Sussex Corp., which is notdirectly involved in the bankruptcy, Tropicana Entertainment andits affiliates own 11 properties, nine of which are covered by thebankruptcy filing. One of the properties not included is theAtlantic City Tropicana, which as a result of the licensing issueis no longer under the company's control. Of those propertiesincluded in the filing, five are in Nevada, two are in Mississippiand one is in Indiana.

Tropicana president Scott Butera, who will lead therestructuring, says the company has secured $67 million indebtor-in-possession financing from Silver Point Finance, LLC ofGreenwich, CT that should allow it to continue operations whilemaintaining current staffing levels and paying vendors for currentservices. In court documents, Butera lays out the series of eventsthat led to the bankruptcy filing.

The company started down the path as soon as it acquiredTropicana casinos, from owner Aztar Corp. in January 2007, for $2.1billion in cash, following an intense bidding war. In retrospect,Butera says the company paid a top-of-the-market price just priorto the market's decline. "As a result of the acquisition financing,the debtors became significantly but not inordinately leveraged,which would have been quite manageable had market forces notquickly changed," Butera says.