Caesars Entertainment Corp (CZR): Omega Advisors Raises Stake as Company Defaults on Debt

As a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed, Leon Cooperman is bullish on Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR). The filling revealed that Mr. Cooperman upped his stake to 7.82 million shares, from 6.99 million shares held earlier. Following the increase of the passive stake, Mr. Cooperman directly and through his fund, Omega Advisors, owns 5.41% of Caesars’ common stock.

Billionaire Leon Cooperman is a former general partner, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He founded Omega Advisors in 1991 and over the last two decades the fund grew to more than $6 billion in assets. The fund initiated a stake in Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR) during the second quarter of 2013, initially reporting ownership of 1.14 million shares. Another shareholder of the company is John Paulson’s Paulson & Co, which owns 13.16 million shares as of the end of September. George Soros’ Soros Fund Management also disclosed ownership of around 6.60 million shares in its latest 13F filing.

Meanwhile, the stock of the $1.90 billion diversified casino-entertainment provider dropped by more than 35% over the last 52 weeks. The decline came on the back of disappointing financial results that came below the expectations. For the third quarter, Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR)’s EPS went down to $6.29 from $6.03 a year ago, while its revenue slightly grew to $2.12 billion, from $2.18 billion.

In addition, a couple of days ago, Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR)’s main operating subsidiary, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co (CEOC), announced that it would not pay interest on several of its bonds, for a total of around $225 million, which basically means that the company defaulted on its debt that amounts to more than $18 billion. The company considers a restructuring of CEOC’s debt and has already conducted discussion with some of its bondholders.

Aside from Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR), Mr. Cooperman has made several other interesting moves during the last couple of months. At the end of November, the fund inched down its stake in Chimera Investment Corporation (NYSE:CIM) to 66.17 million shares, which represent 6.4% of the company. The investor has also been raising his exposure to Atlas Energy LP (NYSE:ATLS) and of late added 38,600 shares taking the stake to over 6.60 million shares.

Disclosure: none