Nuveen, OppenheimerFunds Lose Gamble on Sonoma County Casino

  • River Rock Casino offers bondholders 30 percent of principal
  • Bonds held by mutual funds were from an earlier restructuring
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Nuveen Asset Management and OppenheimerFunds Inc., among the municipal-bond market’s biggest high-yield fund managers, gambled on a casino 80 miles from San Francisco, and lost.

In 2013, two years after the money managers acquired more than $50 million in bonds following a debt restructuring by the River Rock Casino’s owners, the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, another tribe opened a gambling resort 30 miles (48 kilometers) closer to the city. River Rock suffered a 50 percent decline in revenue and defaulted in 2014.