Leisure Investments Holdings LLC, which operates as The Dolphin Company, is now in its sixteenth month of chapter 11 administration before Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Delaware, with a court-supervised sale process underway and estate professionals drawing monthly compensation without objection.
The Debtors — a Cancún-headquartered operator of more than thirty marine-animal attractions across eight countries, employing roughly 2,600 people and housing some 2,400 animals — filed for protection on March 31, 2025 Voluntary PetitionDkt. 1, pushed into court by a liquidity crisis against more than $200 million in funded debt. The company had been in payment default on its $100 million Prepetition First Lien Notes (8.5%, April 2026 maturity) since January 2024 and on its floating-rate Prepetition Second Lien Notes (June 2027 maturity) since September 2023, compounded by eviction litigation at the Miami Seaquarium, an animal-welfare investigation at Gulf World Marine Park, and an unauthorized Concurso Mercantil filing in Mexico launched by an affiliate. After roughly eighteen months of defaults, the First Lien Noteholders exercised remedies in March 2025 to replace the board, installing sole independent director Steven Robert Strom, who in turn appointed Robert Wagstaff as Chief Restructuring Officer Declaration of Steven Robert StromDkt. 10.
To fund operations and use cash collateral, the Debtors put in place a combined postpetition financing package that grew through successive interim orders to $129 million in total commitments — $43 million of new money and $86 million of prepetition-debt roll-up — under a final order entered in September 2025. The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors was formed and has retained both counsel and a financial advisor, and an adversary proceeding seeking a declaratory judgment on the validity, priority, and extent of liens on the Debtors' property was commenced in June 2025 Complaint and Request for Declaratory JudgmentDkt. 1.
The case is presently centered on marketing and selling the Debtors' assets, with investment banker Greenhill & Co. maintaining a virtual data room, managing buyer diligence, and recording ongoing sale-process hours through June 2026 Twelfth and Thirteenth Monthly Applications of Greenhill & Co.Dkt. 1274. Challenge-period disputes are narrowing: the UCC withdrew its motion to further extend the challenge period on July 9, 2026, while noting that a separate extension request remains pending Notice of Withdrawal of Motion to Extend the Challenge PeriodDkt. 1273. No plan has been filed. The next omnibus hearing is scheduled for July 20, 2026.
