Michael Jackson Estate Still Facing $300 Million Debt

(HMG) – Michael Jackson’s pension for extravagant spending still haunts his estate since he died almost a year ago.  Though a resurgence of interest in the singer after his death yielded $200 million in posthumous income—a windfall that helped pay off a host of bills and avoid foreclosure on an Los Angeles home where his mother lives, his estate is still struggling to come up with the money to pay off the massive $500 million debt the King of Pop racked up in his final years, especially a $300 million loan payment to Barclays PLC that comes due at the end of this year.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Sony helped set the loan up with Barclays four years ago. It was guaranteed by Jackson’s 50 per cent ownership of the Beatles catalog.  While Jackson Inc is in far better financial shape now than when the singer was alive, Michael Jackson’s three young children and his 80-year-old mother, Katherine, may be forced to sell the stake in the music publishing company Sony/ATV, if the estate fails to find a way to refinance or settle the loan before it comes due. Otherwise Sony has the right to buy that half-share from the estate for the fire-sale price for a fixed price of $250 million. At the time that was a generous valuation, but Sony/ATV’s value has since soared to around $2 billion.  Still estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain have dramatically turned around Jackson’s finances allowing the estate to pay off tens of millions of dollars in debt and avert foreclosure on the suburban Los Angeles complex where the singer’s mother lives.