Chickasaw Nation’s cost for track rises to $48.7 million

Posted Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By RANDALL CHASE

The Associated Press

WILMINGTON, Del. — A subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma received court approval Wednesday to buy Magna Entertainment Corp.’s Lone Star Park horse track in Texas, albeit for $20 million more than the tribe first thought it would spend.

Delaware bankruptcy judge Mary Walrath approved the sale of Lone Star to Chickasaw subsidiary Global Gaming LSP LLC, which submitted a winning bid of $47.8 million for the pari-mutuel horse racing track in Grand Prairie.

Global Gaming thought it had submitted a winning bid of $27 million earlier this month, but Walrath rescheduled an auction after ruling that an affiliate of Penn National Gaming Inc. was wrongfully excluded from the bidding process.

According to a court filing by Magna’s committee of unsecured creditors, Penn National Gaming complied with the rules for submitting its bid, but was disqualified by Magna because the deposit associated with the bid was partially refundable.

The committee said that after Penn National, a Pennsylvania-based national gambling company, clarified that it intended to bid higher once it was in an auction, the best course of action was to reschedule the auction.

According to the committee, Penn National submitted an original bid of $28 million and later advised Magna it was willing to bid $40 million for the track.

Magna attorney Brian Rosen told the judge Wednesday that last week’s rescheduled auction opened with Penn’s $40 million bid.

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