http://www.newwest.net/topic/main/C/L/ New West Network: The Voice of the Rocky Mountains en info@newwest.net Copyright 2011 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:55:46 MST Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:55:46 MST http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/yellowstone_club_founder_edra_blixseth_under_investigation_by_fbi/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/yellowstone_club_founder_edra_blixseth_under_investigation_by_fbi/C589/C589/ Mon, 11 Oct 2010 08:32:40 MST Edra Blixseth, ex-wife of Tim Blixseth and former owner of the Yellowstone Club, is at the center of a criminal investigation, according to a report filed last night by the Associated Press. In it, Edra Blixseth denies wrongdoing in the probe regarding several multimillion-dollar loans she either took out or guaranteed during the time of her divorce. In documents, it’s alleged she underreported her assets. No charges have been filed. According to the AP: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/judge_blixseth_caused_yellowstone_clubs_collapse_orders_him_to_pay_some_not/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/judge_blixseth_caused_yellowstone_clubs_collapse_orders_him_to_pay_some_not/C589/C589/ Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:09:43 MST Federal Bankruptcy Judge Ralph B. Kirscher did not mince many words in a decision released this week in the Yellowstone Club bankruptcy case: Tim Blixseth’s “pattern of self-dealing,” is what ultimately led to the crash of the exclusive Montana resort. But, that doesn’t mean he’ll be on the hook for all the club’s debts. Some, but not all. And, the club’s lender, Credit Suisse, whose loan was at the center of the long, brutal battle over the club’s finances, was no saint either. A large issue in the resort’s bankruptcy case has been the $375 million loan from Credit Suisse that quickly evaporated after it closed. Not being able to pay that loan back was the crux of the resort’s bankruptcy filing in fall of 2008. The club has since emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership. Blixseth was accused of pocketing the Credit Suisse loan for private jets and other lavish purchases and the bank was charged with being irresponsible, flippant even, in making the loan.  http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseths_fate_in_a_judges_hands/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseths_fate_in_a_judges_hands/C589/C589/ Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:59:37 MST The fate of Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth, and the health of his wallet, depend on the fine print of a divorce settlement and a variety of accounting questions that were argued in exquisite detail in federal court in Missoula today. Blixseth stands accused of fraud and “breach of fiduciary duty” related to a $375 million loan he obtained from Credit Suisse in 2005. The 59-year-old former billionaire spent more than $200 million of the cash for his personal use, buying everything from high-end real estate to airplanes. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseth_fraud_trial_court_seeks_assets_answers/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseth_fraud_trial_court_seeks_assets_answers/C589/C589/ Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:11:11 MST Accused of secretly siphoning $286.4 million of his assets to a Nevada company so creditors couldn’t get it--and charged with bankrupting the ski resort he built from scratch--Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth sat in a federal courtroom in Missoula yesterday and watched the latest chapter in his legal saga unfold. The ending might be riches-to-rags. The 59-year-old real estate tycoon, who launched a lavish 13,400-acre private enclave above Big Sky a decade ago, is on trial before U.S. District Judge Ralph Kirscher for allegedly committing fraud and breaching his fiduciary duties to the club. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseths_son_leads_new_lawsuit_against_credit_suisse/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/blixseths_son_leads_new_lawsuit_against_credit_suisse/C589/C589/ Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:47:03 MST The son of Yellowstone Club developer and former owner Tim Blixseth is taking a lead role in a new lawsuit against investment bank Credit Suisse, accusing the financial giant of deliberately engineering the failure of at least four major resort projects so that it could acquire them on the cheap. Beau Blixseth, the son of Tim Blixseth and a Yellowstone Club property owner, and L. J. Gibson, an individual who bought property at Tamarack Resort in Idaho, Lake Las Vegas in Nevada, and Gin Sur Mer in the Bahamas, are the initial plaintiffs in the proposed class-action lawsuit, which was filed Sunday in Federal District Court in Idaho. The suit alleges a host of illegal acts by Credit Suisse and the real estate firm Chushman & Wakefield, including violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), fraud, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, and seeks $24 billion in damages. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/moonlight_basin_files_for_bankruptcy_protection/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/moonlight_basin_files_for_bankruptcy_protection/C589/C589/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:15:59 MST Moonlight Basin, the troubled Big Sky, Montana ski resort, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, just a day before a foreclosure hearing that could have put the property in the hands of its primary lender, Lehman Bros. Moonlight took a loan of $100 million from Lehman Bros. in the fall of 2007 with the intention of quickly selling the resort, but the real estate meltdown scotched that plan, and the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. itself in the fall of 2008 has left the six-year-old resort in limbo. In the bankruptcy filing, Moonlight seeks permission to obtain $21 million in interim financing from Trilogy Capital, a Connecticut based hedge fund, which would enable Moonlight to remain open and have a ski season as planned. Lehman Bros. indicated in the foreclosure case that it also intended to keep the resort open, but the investment bank wanted to gain full control and appoint a receiver in the place of current management before it provided the funds needed to continue operations. The foreclosure proceeding, which is a state court action, is automatically put on hold by the bankruptcy filing. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/touted_as_utahs_yellowstone_club_elk_meadows_also_goes_on_the_auction_block/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/touted_as_utahs_yellowstone_club_elk_meadows_also_goes_on_the_auction_block/C589/C589/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:09:54 MST Once hailed as the Utah version of the posh Yellowstone Club, the Elk Meadows development near Beaver has followed a similar fate and is now on the auction block. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this week, the development near Beaver, which was supposed to have all the amenities of the high-end resort market of earlier this decade: Jack Nicklaus golf course, private ski runs and extravagant second homes, was once worth $3.5 billion, but is now in an online auction with a suggested value of $5.15 million. But, the starting bid is $1 million. As Jodi Peterson notes on the High Country News Goat blog, (HCN, by the way, did a good story on the resort in 2008, which you can read here) in May, the Yellowstone Club was sold for $115 million. The original developers, the Mount Holly Partners, filed for bankruptcy this summer, but in the face of objections from one of the resort’s investors, MHU Holdings of New York City, the bankruptcy was rejected and Mount Holly turned the property over in foreclosure proceedings. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/credit_suisse_execs_get_subpoenas_for_predatory_yellowstone_club_loans/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/credit_suisse_execs_get_subpoenas_for_predatory_yellowstone_club_loans/C589/C589/ Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:30:48 MST Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth has subpoenaed 31 Credit Suisse officials, demanding that they hand over documents that will shed light on the “predatory lending practices” involving the ritzy club, according to a story today in Marketwatch.com. The source of the story is the Blixseth Group, which is headed by Tim Blixseth. Here are some story highlights (much of them representing the Blixseth Group’s spin on current events): -- “Brady Dougan, the Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, and Hans-Ulrich Doerig, Chairman of the Board of Directors, received the subpoenas along with past and current Executive Board officials and Credit Suisse’s Board of Directors.” -- The subpoenas stem from the $375 million Credit Suisse loan to the Yellowstone Club in 2005. Blixseth wants to uncover internal documents that explain how the bank developed the loan scheme (one that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher described as “naked greed” that “shocks the conscience of this court.") http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/yellowstone_club_pays_6_million_to_local_creditors/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/yellowstone_club_pays_6_million_to_local_creditors/C589/C589/ Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:12:25 MST Nearly $6 million in checks were distributed this week by the Yellowstone Club, satisfying almost all the claims of more than 140 vendors and contractors who have been waiting almost a year for their money. The payments came as a result of an unusual bankruptcy court settlement in which trade creditors are getting their money before the consortium of lenders led by Credit Suisse gets theirs. It is very rare in a bankruptcy case for unsecured creditors to get paid in full ahead of secured lenders. In a letter accompanying the checks, Sam Byrne, managing partner of CrossHarbor Capital and the new owner of the club, said: “Yellowstone Club, its new owners, members and employees all recognize the delay in payment of these monies has caused significant financial hardship for many who provided goods and services to Yellowstone Club. We hope that full payment on your approved claims will provide some relief to his financial burden, and that this will be the beginning of a rebuilding of the reputation of the Yellowstone Club with vendors and service providers in the Big Sky and greater Bozeman communities and beyond.” While most of the club’s trade debt has now been paid, considerable friction has emerged between the so-called Liquidating Trust - the entity charged with collecting money and paying it to those who are owed - and the committee representing unsecured creditors. The trust, which is being managed by New York-based attorney Mark S. Kirschner, has sought to disallow even some small claims on the grounds that they are the responsibility not of the club but of former club owners Tim and Edra Blixseth. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/myth_and_reality_at_the_yellowstone_club/C589/C589/ http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/myth_and_reality_at_the_yellowstone_club/C589/C589/ Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:04:46 MST On a recent tour of the Yellowstone Club, the now-infamous private ski resort near Big Sky, Montana, my tour guide gestured out the window of the SUV. “This is the Taj Mahal of Tim Blixseth,” he said as the gargantuan $100 million Warren Miller Lodge slid into view. While the original Taj Mahal was built in Agra, India, as an enduring symbol of love, the Warren Miller Lodge apparently took its notes from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. When compared side by side, these two building share striking commonalities: builders with sizeable egos, high-profile divorces and difficult bankruptcy proceedings. Their oversized décor and glitz created a mirage of riches while masking less lustrous behind-the-scenes activity. At the Warren Miller Lodge, however, it appears that the spirit of Montana is gaining the upper hand. The motion sensors operating the immense entrance doors have been switched off. The bears, smart creatures that they are, had been taking advantage of the technology to wander freely into the lodge. Keeping out the uninvited was a key feature touted by Tim and Edra Blixseth when they opened the Yellowstone Club in 1999. In what is now common lore, the property, acquired in part via a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service, was originally tagged to become the Blixseths’ personal vacation retreat until the plans snowballed into a massive real estate development. Now, in the wake of a tumultuous bankruptcy that resulted in the sale of the club and left the Blixseths (now divorced) facing a veritable mountain of legal and financial claims, a new chapter is opening for the spectacular 13,400 acre property. But to see where the club might go from here, it’s useful to consider where it has been—and how the myth of the Blixseths snowballed out of control.