Friday, 26 July 2013

Bad Celebrity Investments That We Remember

By Cornelius Nunev


While the magic of celeb may increase the status attributed to certain people, this does not mean that everything celebs touch turns to gold. Here are some bad celebrity investments that may cause you to feel better during the night.

Mark Twain investment

In the late 19th century, Mark Twain invested $150,000 to $300,000 on a machine called the Paige Compositor for 11 years. That was a lot of cash back then to throw into an investment. This well-known writer, called the first modern celebrity in America by some, wanted this typesetter that was supposed to be much faster than standard Linotype. The business died pretty easily as the machine was hard to work with and had over 18,000 parts.

Jay-Z

Jay-Z's J Hotels in New York City turned out to be a major bust. The hip-hop mogul bought land in the Chelsea neighborhood in 2007 to build a 150,000-square-foot luxury hotel. By 2008, however, construction was shut down because of lack of funds brought on by the economic crash. Jay-Z's business defaulted on the $52 million loan, and the hotel partners gave the property back to the lenders. Legal battles and out-of-court settlements came to a painful yet unspecified financial end in Dec. 2010.

The Bono investment

Bono was very profitable in his investments with Facebook, BioWare, Pandemic Studios and Yelp. The only problem was that his confidence grew into investments in Forbes, Inc. ($300 million) and Palm ($460 million). These investments only brought a $25 million return for Bono, and he was known as "the worst investor in America" by 24/7 Wall Street. He is the managing director for entertainment equity firm Elevation Partners presently.

Larry King

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

Bernie Madoff scam

Bernard Madoff is currently in jail for 11 federal felonies and serving a 150 year prison sentence. His $65 billion Ponzi scheme stole from over 200 investors, many of which were celebs. Now, all those investors try to figure out how to proceed to make up for the lost cash.

Film star investment

PoFolks was a restaurant chain opened in California, Texas and Florida by film star Burt Reynolds. He is not the only film star who has tried to make this investment. He wound up going bankruptcy in 1996 after losing $15 million on the project and after getting divorced from Loni Anderson. Bankruptcy court let him keep all the property unclaimed by Anderson and his $2.5 million mansion in spite of the truth that he was over $10 million in debt.

The last bad investment

Classic Hollywood film star and Las Vegas fixture Debbie Reynolds purchased a Vegas casino in 1991. She christened it the Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino but neglected to anticipate just how much trouble the hotel would have maintaining business because it was situated off the strip. A 1997 bankruptcy and sale of the hotel to the World Wrestling Federation in 1998 for $10 million left Reynolds broke and heartbroken. She would experience such grief again last year when her memorabilia museum also went bankrupt, forcing her to sell off the trappings of her film career.




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