Late Multimillionaire Businessman Filed for Bankruptcy

Posted by Elizabeth Halpern | Posted in Credit Report | Posted on 14-09-2010

Mikhail Katamanin, the late international businessman worth tens of millions of dollars, filed for personal bankruptcy in June 2009. The former Highland Park, Illinois, high-living tycoon had declared assets worth between $1 million and $10 million (a pretty vague approximation, no?) His assets were estimated at about $20 million. The bankruptcy, however, was dismissed when Katamanin did not file required documents, according to federal court documents.Katamanin, who died from a reported heart ailment in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2009, lived on a two-mansion compound along Lake Michigan in Chicago’s prosperous North Shore suburb. He and his wife, Lena, led an extravagant lifestyle including owning, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Dan Hinkel, an “eye-popping fleet of foreign sports cars”, a number of boats, including a 40-foot yacht, a home in Switzerland and two apartments in Moscow. The former Russian capitalist (is that an oxymoron?) also racked up nearly $7 million of gambling debt at Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos. The millionaire who reportedly made his fortune trading on the international energy markets, also took a high-interest $12 million loan from a Caribbean investment, which he supposedly did not repay.Riddled with debt when he died, Katamanin’s heirs and creditors are “now scrambling to salvage pieces of his fortune.” During ever-more-convoluted court hearings, lawyers maintain that his sons have sold or attempted to sell a number of the immensely valuable sports cars and boats. Lawyers for the young men maintain that their clients did not defraud creditors and asked the presiding judge to allow them to liquidate some of their father’s assets to pay bills, including tuition at Northwestern University; this request has been, to date, denied. Further muddying the bankruptcy waters, attorneys for Katamanin’s sons state that he owned no real estate in the U.S., although one of his homes on affluent Sheridan Road was offered as collateral on the Caribbean loan; seems like Mr. Katamanin wants it both ways. The attorneys also argue that Katamanin was a resident of Moscow and, as such, his estate should be settled under Russian law; another case of wanting it both ways, seems to me. Stay tuned for further developments.For more information on the mechanisms of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy, please go to www.legalhelpers.com  or call toll-free today at 800-260-1402 to speak with a qualified bankruptcy attorney. 

Similar Posts:

Share
(0) Comments

Write a comment