Billionaire investor Carl Icahn will take control of the bankrupt, incomplete Fontainebleau Las Vegas by default, after submitting the only qualifying bid for the casino resort. Court papers filed this week canceled the auction for the property, which was scheduled for Thursday in Miami. Icahn Nevada Gaming Acquisition submitted the only qualified bid, for $156.5 million, including financing, and the sale could be finalized by Jan. 27. Eve Karasik, attorney for the Chapter 11 examiner, said two other, unidentified bidders didn’t include deposits and couldn’t demonstrate the necessary financial health. Penn National Gaming dropped out of the bidding race Jan. 14. The 63-story Fontainebleau, which was about two-thirds done when about 70 percent complete at a cost of $2 billion when developer Jeffrey Soffer filed for bankruptcy on the project in June, is on 27 acres at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip. Completion costs are estimated at $1.5 billion.

Carl Icahn and the Fontainebleau Las Vegas

Investor Carl Icahn doubled a rival offer and put up a $155 million minimum bid for developer Jeffrey Soffer‘s unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino hotel. Penn National Gaming, a Pennsylvania casino operator, last week offered a $105 million opening or stalking horse bid for the Fontainebleau. Penn initially tried to beat Icahn’s offers during a hearing Monday but stopped at $145 million. Miami bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol approved the broad outlines of the Icahn plan, which Fontainebleau lawyers endorsed, clearing the way for a Jan. 21 auction. [Miami Herald]

Casino operator Penn National Gaming seems to be looking make it big with the help of one of Las Vegas’ biggest busts. After weeks of negotiations, Penn bid $102 million for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, an unfinished and bankrupt casino hotel that spent about $2 billion on construction and development, according to court records. Developer Jeffrey Soffer, of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, is pursuing a sale of the Vegas Fontainebleau after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on the stalled project in June. Other casino companies also have toured the Fontainebleau site and signed the documents necessary to prepare a bid for the project, said Howard Karawan, chief restructuring officer for Fontainebleau Resorts. [Miami Herald]

Miami bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol, who is presiding over the Fontainebleau Las Vegas case, took a tour of the unfinished project, which developer Jeffrey Soffer launched in 2007 as a spinoff of his Fontainebleau Miami Beach. The Florida property was undergoing a $500 million renovation at the time. Soffer filed for Chapter 11 protection after $2 billion in construction funding got the Las Vegas hotel only a little more than half-way to completion. On his tour, the judge praised the project as “magnificent,” saying that had the $500 million renovation happened two years earlier or two or three years later, it would, in all likelihood, have succeeded. Casino operator Penn National Gaming has offered substantially’ less than $300 million for the unfinished project, said lawyer Scott Baena, who represents Soffer. [Miami Herald]

The developer of the bankrupt Fontainebleau Las Vegas is seeking to auction off the unfinished hotel to help resolve its $1 billion tangle of litigation. Penn National Gaming has made an offer of less than $300 million to begin a bidding process for the 3,889-room project, but the lawyer for Fountainebleau did not identify the exact amount. In return for setting the pace with its stalking horse bid, Penn will pay the legal expenses of the bankruptcy fight. Judge Jay Cristol wants to appoint an examiner to hasten the process, and lenders want to transform the proceedings from Chapter 11 reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation.