Thursday, October 22, 2015

Bad Celebrity Investments That Make You Go Hmmm

By Cornelius Nunev


Celebrities are people, too. They make poor investments and drop cash like everyone else. Here are a few bad celebrity investments people remember.

How did Mark Twain invest?

One poor investment was made by the first modern celebrity in America, Mark Twain. In the last 19th century, he got a Paige Compositor that was supposed 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 ton of money back in his day.

Jay-Z

The big investment mistake made by Jay-Z would not totally end until December 2010 when out-of-court settlements and legal battles finally ended. He bought land to produce a luxury hotel in New York City. The hotel was going to be 150,000 square feet and would be for luxury guests in the Chelsea neighborhood. He started the project in 2007 right before the economic crash. He ended up defaulting on the $52 million loan and shut down the project because of lack of funds. Hotel partners had to give the lender the property back.

Investing mistake from Bono

The media and entertainment firm Elevation Partners is really managed by Bono. The site 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.

Larry King

Talk show host King became embroiled in a life insurance scam that involved flipping policies for profit. King gave up two policies worth a total of $15 million, but only made back $1.4 million on the sale.

Losing to Madoff

The Bernard Madoff $65 billion Ponzi scheme wound up stealing cash from over 200 investors, many of which were celebrities. Many people are trying to make up for the financial loss now that Madoff is in jail serving 150 years for 11 federal felonies.

Movie star investment

The most popular film star of the 1970s, Burt Reynolds ended up dealing with the urge many celebrities 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 had not already claimed.

Bad investment form Debbie Reynolds

In 1997, Debbie Reynolds would deal with her first bankruptcy due to 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 wound up handling the bankruptcy and selling the hotel off for $10 million in 1998 to the World Wrestling Federation. Last year, she would also end up selling all things from her movie career as her memorabilia museum would also go bankrupt.




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