Friday, October 23, 2015

Bad Celebrity Investments That We Remember

By Cornelius Nunev


Celebrities are people, too. They make poor investments and drop cash like the rest of us. Here are some bad celeb investments individuals remember.

Mark Twain

One bad investment was made by the first modern celebrity in America, Mark Twain. In the last 19th century, he got a Paige Compositor that was intended to be a typesetter faster than the standard Linotype. It ended up not working well because it had over 18,000 parts and needed to be cared for too much. Over 11 years, Twain spent $150,000 to $300,000 on the machine, which was a lot of cash back in his day.

Investment from Jay-Z

Another example of a very poor investment was when Jay-Z decided to put up a 15,000-square-foot luxury hotel in the Chelsea neighborhood in 2007. He got a $52 million loan, and ended up not being able to pay it when the economy crashed in 2008. He defaulted on the loan, and the lender got the land back. The construction as never finished. It was not until December 2010 that the whole ordeal was over with out-of-court settlements.

Investing mistake from Bono

The media and entertainment firm Elevation Partners is actually managed by Bono. The website 24/7 Wall Street said that Bono is "The worst investor in America" when he only got a $25 million return on investments in Palm ($460 million) and Forbes, Inc. ($300 million). He was very successful when he invested in BioWare, Pandemic Studios, Yelp and Facebook.

Bad investment by Larry King

A life insurance scam that flipped policies was something King accidently got behind. He made $1.4 million regardless of the belief that he gave up two policies worth $15 million.

Bernie Madoff scam

More than 200 investors, such as celebrities were taken in by Bernard Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Madoff is now in jail serving 150 years for 11 federal felonies, while celebs and lower-profile investors are still looking for ways to make up for their sizable financial loss.

Another bad investment from a movie star

The most popular movie star of the 1970s, Burt Reynolds wound up handling the urge many celebs face: opening a restaurant chain. The chain was PoFolks, and outlets existed in California, Texas and Florida. By the late 1980s, however, the cupboard was bare and Reynolds was out $15 million. His eventual divorce from Loni Anderson and diminished star power led to a 1996 bankruptcy. Even though he was more than $10 million in debt, bankruptcy court allowed him to keep his $2.5 million mansion and all of his personal property that Anderson hadn't already claimed.

The last poor investment

In 1997, Debbie Reynolds would deal with her first bankruptcy because of a Vegas casino she decided to start in 1991. When she started the casino, called Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino, she did not realize it would never get business by being off the strip. She ended up handling the bankruptcy and selling the hotel off for $10 million in 1998 to the World Wrestling Federation. In 2010, she would also end up selling all things from her film career as her memorabilia museum would also go bankrupt.




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