Thinking about Michael Jackson

I have been thinking a lot about Michael Jackson and the hanger-ons' hovering around his estate like vultures after seeing the photo in the Boston Globe printed in Sunday, June 28th edition. The photo shows Michael's father Joe Jackson and Al Sharpton during a press interview. They were, in the absence of a documented will, claiming the estate and custody of Michael's three children.

How in the world does Al Sharpton get into these situations with black celebrities so often? He is a marvel at knowing where to be at critical moments and the interesting thing is that he has that much access to people like the Jackson's. I remember Sharpton and the black college soccer team and Imus. He is a professional black celebrity parasite; but is there anything here for him to feed on? I don't think so,

Joe Jackson's is in deep financial trouble, he is hoping that gaining his son's estate will bail him out. His wife was awarded custody of the children but he did not get what he really wants, access to his son's assets like the Sony music catalog containing Beetle, Neil Diamond and others like them. It turns out that there is a Will and although the kids are in his wife's custody, the assets will be in a trust fund run by two of Michael's business partners.

Here is an article that describes the financial problems the Trust inherits:


"Michael Jackson delighted people around the world with his music, inspired countless amateur moonwalkers with his moves and had an untold, but surely huge, effect on the sales of individual white gloves.

The pop superstar, who died unexpectedly on Thursday, also kept a lot of people in high finance very busy. His wealth, and, later in his career, his expanding debt, became fodder for deals with private equity firms like Fortress Investment Group and Colony Capital as well as big banks like Citigroup and Bank of America.

In the process, his fantastical Neverland Ranch in California was nearly put on the auction block — saved only when one investment firm swooped in to buy the related debt from another firm, with hopes of backing, and profiting from, a revival of Mr. Jackson’s career.

A lot of Mr. Jackson’s monetary dealings have been conducted in private. But several of the pivotal moments have been described in media reports over the years.

Driving many of the deals was Mr. Jackson’s increasingly unmanageable debt load — something that private equity firms can probably relate to these days.

A 2006 article in The New York Times said the principal drains on Mr. Jackson’s finances may have been “monumentally unwise investments that apparently produced equally colossal losses” — and, later, the payments to service his debt.

A financial adviser to Mr. Jackson described how he might have frittered away $50 million on things like amusement-park ideas and “bizarre, global kinds of computerized Marvel comic-book characters bigger than life.”

In 2003, Fortress Investment, a private equity and hedge fund firm that has since gone public, bought some of Mr. Jackson’s loans from Bank of America after the pop singer missed some payments. Shortly before Christmas in 2005, Fortress threatened to call the loans because of his delinquency, The Times reported.

A few months later, a new deal was reached, as part of a $300 million refinancing structured by Citigroup.

Mr. Jackson’s financial problems continued, however, and in spring of 2008, it looked as if Fortress would foreclose on the Neverland Ranch. But Colony Capital, a private equity firm led by Thomas Barrack, stepped in to buy Mr. Jackson’s loan from Fortress, averting an auction.

A few months later, the deed to Neverland was transferred to Sycamore Valley Ranch Company, a joint venture between Mr. Jackson and Colony.

Just a few weeks ago, Mr. Barrack expressed optimism about Mr. Jackson’s career and his plans for a concert series in London. “You are talking about a guy who could make $500 million a year if he puts his mind to it,” Mr. Barrack told The Los Angeles Times.

While the wrangling over Mr. Jackson’s Neverland Ranch was among the most visible signs of his financial troubles, the debt ran far deeper. Over the years, he amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in other loans to finance his lifestyle.

The collateral for those loans is not his real estate, but Mr. Jackson’s stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing. It’s a valuable asset: It holds a portfolio of thousands of songs, including rights to 259 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney."