jump to navigation

You’d Think This Person Could’ve Lived Off of His Royalties Forever May 19, 2006

Imagine this scenario:

Assets:
A) $15million per year revenue from royalty fees ($300 million total royalty fees (from a $47.5 million purchase of asset (nice return!))
B) $20million per year revenue from business ($400 million total revenue)

Liabilities:
1) $300 million bank loan (to pay off spending sprees that includes upkeep for a California home) - $4.5million monthly payments

Expenses:
- Spend $9000 per night at hotels in Dubai
- $20million lawsuit settlement
- $8million annually on plane charters, artwork, hotel, and travel expenses.
- $4million on home upkeep
- had to sell a 50% stake in asset A for $100 million to pay debt burden.

“If you want to take a trip to London, that’s one thing. If you want to continue that trip and have your entourage of 15 or 20 people go with you, it gets expensive.”

He “became fixated on obtaining expensive possessions and feeding his ego by listening to the advice of hucksters and imposters.” If he read any of our personal finance blogs (or pfblogs.org), he might not be in this situation. But then again, who’d think he would be on the brink of bankrupcy? Who am I talking about? It’s…Michael Jackson. I feel bad for him, but do you think he could cut down on the hotel and travel bills? Maybe he could sell some real estate? He can save on phone bills too if he signed up for Vonage like I did. He can even call Europe unlimited minutes! Or he can cut down on charter flights to Europe and use Kayak.com to compare flights. Ha, I’m being facetious, but I’m sure there’s a lot of cash flowing out where he can save. Live below your means and you won’t have these problems! What else do you think Michael Jackson could’ve done to prevent his financial situation?

Source:
What Happened to the Fortune Michael Jackson Made?
By TIMOTHY L. O’BRIEN, NY Times
Published: May 14, 2006

Comments»

no comments yet - be the first?