Lawyers Declare Sea Island Auction A Success... For Themselves!

Only people charging $700 an hour could concoct something like this for the Sea Island sale of $212.4 million, up from the original $197.5. Carrick Mollenkamp reports:

In an unexpected twist, the four firms acquiring the assets include two—Oaktree Capital Management LP and Avenue Capital Group—that had submitted a winning bid of $197.5 million in August. But the bankruptcy process left the door open for an auction and Anschutz Corp. and Starwood Capital Group Global now will join Oaktree and Avenue in the purchase of the assets.

Anschutz and Starwood had been seen as competing bidders for Sea Island's assets, not as partners with Oaktree and Avenue. But during the course of the auction Monday, a joint bid materialized. A break-up fee of nearly $6 million is waived.

Under terms of a pact that must be finalized, an Oaktree-Avenue partnership will now buy the assets with an Anschutz-Starwood partnership.

Comments

[3Jack]

As I recollect, Oaktree and Anschutz have a history of corporate cooperation. An example of which is Oaktree's majority control of digital projection technology at Texas Instruments and the fact that Anschutz, via Regal Entertainment Group, operates over 6,800 movie screens in North America. That would make REG not only the largest chain in North America, but by far the largest customer for one of Oaktree's major holdings.
It would apprear that when Oaktree and Avenue found that they didn't have a lock on the Sea Islandpurchase, they needed to up the price and blow away any rival bidders. Enter Anshutz and Starwood with a 7.5% lift to the bid and a back-in partnership deal on the resort real estate.
That kind of deal doesn't come from your crosstown rival in the midst of an auction!

[Jordan]

Geoff:

Don't you know that the only people who make money in a bankruptcy are the attorneys?

[Klink]

A 4-way winning bid for $212.4mil

... and we here at geoffshackelford.com eagerly await many more post- post-apocalyptic stories about Sea Island in the years to come ... thank you.

[Tottenham Hotspur]

Only $700/hr? Were these rookies? My friend at Skadden only charges $900/hr.

[Thos. J. (Tom) Peters]

Sternlicht and Anschutz are builder/operators... Avenue & Oaktree are sharks (by profession) with fairly deep Sea Island roots. A very interesting partnership is brewing.