Executive's departure blow to Greektown Casino

Part of team to help revive casino departs after pulling state licensure application

Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

Detroit --Greektown Casino-Hotel's chief marketing executive left her post this week after deciding to withdraw an application for licensure by the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

The departure of Amanda Totaro comes just 10 months after she started at Greektown as part of a contract with Las Vegas-based Fine Point Group, which has been running the casino since January. Totaro was one of three Fine Point executives brought in to turn around the casino's finances and operations after revenues plummeted following Greektown's bankruptcy filing in May 2008.

Totaro's marketing plan has been particularly aggressive, bringing in well-noticed promotions such as "Beat the Chicken," where players compete in a game of tic-tac-toe against live fowl trained in Arkansas, while offering to beat competitors' coupons and special offers for regular players.

Rick Kalm, executive director of the Michigan Gaming Control Board, confirmed Wednesday that Totaro had withdrawn her application for licensure, but wouldn't reveal why. Kalm said the licensing division of his office keeps in touch regularly with licensure applicants throughout the investigative process.

If red flags are raised during the investigation, applicants are given the opportunity to correct problems or withdraw the application, Kalm said.

"(Totaro) has an opportunity to reapply in the future if she wants to," Kalm said.

Without a license, Totaro can't work in Michigan casinos.

Spokesmen representing both Greektown and the Fine Point Group didn't respond to requests for comment on whether red flags were raised during the Totaro investigation, and attempts Wednesday to reach Totaro at her Florida home and Las Vegas office were unsuccessful.

Her departure adds yet another wrinkle to Greektown's ongoing bankruptcy saga, which will likely loom until June, almost a year after its originally intended date of exodus, a lawyer working on the case said Wednesday.

Allan Brilliant, a partner at New York-based Goodwin Procter representing some Greektown bondholders, said that under a plan being negotiated deadlines have been tentatively set to confirm a plan for bankruptcy exit by Jan. 31, and for the casino to exit under new ownership by June 30.

Negotiations between the bondholders and pre-bankruptcy creditors in the case continued Wednesday, and parties will join again in Judge Walter Shapero's courtroom today. The creditors, led by Merrill Lynch, presented the first bankruptcy exit plan to the court months ago; that plan values the casino at roughly $540 million and leaves nothing for bondholders and others.

A competing plan submitted by the bondholders values Greektown at $600 million and would provide a more fiscally satisfactory outcome for the bondholders and some other creditors. Some creditors would receive preferred options for equity in the casino, while yet-unnamed investors are providing a financial backstop in case those options aren't exercised.

For the past few weeks, lawyers have been hashing out details on combining the two exit plans; on Wednesday, Brilliant said contention remained about just how firm the anticipated confirmation and exit dates would be.

Daniel Weiner, a partner with Schafer and Weiner, the Bloomfield Hills firm representing the casino, said that parties were getting "extremely close" to a deal on Wednesday.

Shapero quipped that showed improvement from previous reports this week and last that an agreement was "really close" and "very, very close."

Should Greektown emerge by June 30 of next year, its exit would be almost a year late. When lawyers filed initial paperwork sinking the casino into Chapter 11 last year, they boasted that the case was on track to go smoothly, with September 2009 targeted as a reasonable date of exit.

nhurst@detnews.com (313) 222-2293