Displaying items by tag: bankruptcy

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will give pay raises and bonuses to three of its top executives in recognition of their work securing the museum’s collection during the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy negotiations. Former Director and President Graham Beal (who left the DIA on June 30) will get a retroactive $20,000 raise for the fiscal years 2014 and 2015, plus a $30,000 performance bonus; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Annmarie Erickson and Chief Financial Officer Robert Bowen will receive 3% raises for the fiscal years 2014 and 2015, plus bonuses of $65,000 and $40,000, respectively.

The Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid is due to file for bankruptcy after it failed to resolve its spiralling debts. The factory’s accumulated losses stood at nearly €6m in 2013, while a lack of funds means its 52 employees have not been paid for four months. Its electricity supply is also on the verge of being cut off, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Monica Oriole, the president of the foundation that runs the factory, resigned following a board meeting on 13 July, in which it was agreed the company would begin the process of applying for bankruptcy.

It is a sad 20th birthday for the Musée Maillol in Paris, which shut its doors indefinitely this weekend. The museum has posted a message on its website that says the closure is due to planned renovation work, but there is more to the story. On February 5, the company that manages the museum, Tecniarte, filed for bankruptcy.

According to court filings, with only €11,000 in cash in its coffers, Tecniarte could not possibly cover its €3.3m debt, which is “due immediately.” The list of creditors has not been made public and the foundation that runs the museum has declined to comment since the bankruptcy filing.

Less than a year after the Detroit Institute of Arts promised to contribute $100 million to the grand bargain rescue fund at the core of the city's bankruptcy restructuring plan, the museum has crossed the finish line.

Museum board chair Gene Gargaro said Monday that he reported to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder at the end of December that the museum had reached the present-value equivalent of its pledge to raise $100 million over 20 years.

The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House kept secret the 2013 sale of an oil painting by French post-impressionist Paul Cézanne to a private buyer for $100 million to help protect Detroit-owned artworks under threat due to the city’s bankruptcy.

The sale appeared on the nonprofit institution’s 2013 tax form and removes from the 1929 Grosse Pointe Shores mansion a painting that had been in the Ford family since the mid-20th century, the "Detroit Free Press" reported Friday.

Following a seven-year legal battle over a Sandro Botticelli painting "Madonna and Child" (1485) that was caught up in the collapse and ensuing bankruptcy proceedings of Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, rulings by two New York judges last month have resulted in the painting—worth an estimated $10 million—being returned to its rightful owner, Panama-based Kraken Investments. Ronald Fuhrer, a Tel Aviv-based dealer and advisor to Kraken, confirmed to artnet News that he had retrieved the painting on behalf of the investment firm on December 8. At various times, it looked as though the painting would be classified for legal purposes as gallery collateral and thus one of the assets that should be sold to repay creditors, despite the owners insistence that it had merely been loaned for a show.

A federal judge approved Detroit's bankruptcy plan today, allowing the city government to hit the reset button after its years of financial mismanagement. As part of the deal, which took a relatively speedy 16 months to complete, the city is eliminating $7 billion worth of debt—some creditors will be paid just 14 cents on the dollar—while slicing pension payments to its retired workforce by 4.5 percent (and ending their cost of living increases, and upping their health plan costs, and ... you get the idea, it's unpleasant). Meanwhile, the blueprint sets aside $1.7 billion over the next decade to cover critical needs, like demolishing abandoned homes and buying new fire trucks and ambulances.

As many outlets are noting, the bankruptcy could have been far lengthier, and even more painful for retirees, had it not been for an unusual deal designed to save the Detroit Institute of Arts while minimizing cuts to pensions.

When Delaware Art Museum leaders announced in 2001 an ambitious plan to nearly double the size of the institution's Kentmere Parkway location, they likely had no clue the project would threaten to bankrupt the institution – twice.

In the end, the $32.5 million expansion plagued by cost overruns and construction delays saddled the museum with a crushing debt, which severely depleted its investment reserve fund and discouraged corporate and individual donations.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes on Thursday signaled that he is viewing the value of the Detroit Institute of the Arts through the lens of the Detroit's future as the city works to emerge from Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

Rhodes asked Annmarie Erickson, executive vice president of the museum, how valuable the museum is to the education of children, to the social enjoyment of families who visit the museum, and for southeast Michigan as a whole.