Thomas Barrack had hand in Michael's murder. Thome is friend of his.
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In conclusion: Reimagining Michael Jackson
Written by Chris Lee & Harriet Ryan / Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 19:30
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here is the concluding part of a Los Angeles Times story on how financier Tom Barrack and a few other financial heavyweights may succeed where many others have failed: make Michael Jackson, the faded “King of Pop,” relevant again. The first part appeared in yesterday’s issue.
THE concert production firm AEG Live has proposed a three-year tour starting in Europe, then traveling to Asia and finally returning to the United States. Although Michael Jackson has thus far only committed to the series of 50 sold-out shows at O2 Arena in London, AEG’s Phillips Anschutz estimates ticket sales for the global concerts would exceed $450 million.
“One would hope he would end up netting around 50 percent of that,” Phillips said.
The private-equity firm Colony Capital’s Tom Barrack, the man who set Jackson’s comeback in motion, has seen his net worth drop with the financial crisis of the last year. Forbes estimated his wealth at $2.3 billion around the time he met Jackson, but he is now merely a multimillionaire. He said the economic downturn makes Jackson even more attractive as an investment because his value has been overlooked: In times like this, he said, “finding little pieces of information that others don’t have” is more important than ever.
His company isn’t exposed to any risk by working with Jackson. All the money Colony has put up is backed by the value of Neverland and related assets, he said. If Jackson regains firm financial footing, Barrack’s company could be a partner in future deals. “When he looks back and says, ‘Who took the risk? Who was there?’ I mean, he gets it. So that’s my hope,” Barrack said.
It all depends on what happens on July 13 when the lights go down in the O2 Arena. Doubts about Jackson’s reliability are widespread because of his long concert hiatus. Those concerns were heightened earlier this month when the show’s opening night was pushed back five days. Phillips and Kenny Ortega, the director, blamed production problems and said Jackson was ready to perform.
Fans demonstrated their faith in Jackson months ago when they snapped up 750,000 tickets for shows through March 2010 in less than four hours. “We could have done 200 shows if he were willing to live in London for two years,” Phillips said.
Amid the high stakes, Phillips has taken a hands-on approach more reminiscent of his early days as a talent manager for acts, including Guns N’ Roses and Lionel Richie, than as the company’s chief executive.
A reputation, a do-or-die moment
IN addition to the more than $20 million AEG is paying to produce the shows, the company is putting its reputation on the line for a performer with a track record of missed performances and canceled dates. In a video news conference earlier this month, Phillips acknowledged that the company has only been able to insure 23 of the 50 This Is It performances.” In this business, if you don’t take risks, you don’t achieve greatness,” Phillips said.
Phillips said he speaks with Jackson regularly and has closely monitored rehearsals in a Burbank soundstage. In response to questions about his physical condition, especially in light of his previous addiction to prescription painkillers, Phillips said Jackson passed a rigorous medical examination. Associates also say he adheres to a strict vegetarian diet and works out with a personal trainer.
But the problems that have bedeviled Jackson in the past—infighting, disorganization and questionable advisors—persist.
In an interview last week Dr. Tohme Tohme, an orthopedic surgeon-turned-businessman who had previously worked with Colony Capital, identified himself as the singer’s “manager, spokesman, everything” and spoke about the benefits of dealing with business titans Barrack and Anschutz rather than their “sleazy” predecessors. “Michael Jackson is an institution. He needs to be run like an institution,” Tohme said.
The next day, however, Frank DiLeo, Jackson’s current manager and a friend of three decades, claimed he was Jackson’s manager and said Tohme had been fired a month and a half earlier. Tohme denied being fired but declined further comment.
In April Jackson fired the accounting firm, Cannon & Co., that had worked for him for a year, according to an accountant who worked on his finances. Jeff Cannon of Cannon & Co. said he received a phone call from an assistant of Jackson who said the singer no longer required his services.
Then there is Arfaq Hussain. A British man who met Jackson in the late 1990s, Hussain designed clothing for the performer—including an air-conditioned jacket, a pair of self-adjusting, rhodium-plated shoes and the “Crystal Miracle,” a jacket covered with 275,000 rock crystals—and tried to launch a business selling $75,000 bottles of perfume by trading on Jackson’s name.
In 2002 Hussain was jailed for four months in Britain for charges related to business fraud. Hussain and Jackson recently became reacquainted and the singer hired him as an assistant, DiLeo said.
The woman who was Jackson’s public face during his 2005 criminal trial on allegations of child sexual abuse, former manager and spokesman Raymone Bain, is pressing a federal breach of contract suit against the singer. Bain claims that Jackson cheated her out of her 10-percent cut of several business deals, including the AEG concerts. Bain is to ask a judge in Washington, D.C., next month to seize the portion she alleges is hers, citing Jackson’s history of evading creditors.
In his corner office high above Century City, Barrack is sanguine about reports of disharmony.
“You have the same thousand parasites that start to float back in and take advantage of the situation and that has happened a little at the edges,” he said. But, he added, he had confidence in AEG’s ability to keep Jackson focused.
The concerts, Phillips acknowledged, are a do-or-die moment for Jackson.
“If it doesn’t happen, it would be a major problem for him, career-wise, in a way that it hasn’t been in the past,” he said.
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