Edra Blixseth – The New York Times

Written by amywallace on June 14th, 2009

Credit Suisse countersued and has asserted repeatedly in court that its Yellowstone loan wasn’t unusual and didn’t cause the club’s troubles.

In May, the judge overseeing the Yellowstone bankruptcy issued an interim order in which he criticized Credit Suisse as engaging in “predatory lending practices” that he said “resulted in financial ruin for several residential resort communities.”

In addition to the Yellowstone Club, properties in Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada and Utah borrowed under this Credit Suisse program. Several have defaulted or gone bankrupt. “The naked greed in this case,” wrote the judge, “shocks the conscience of this court.”

Credit Suisse earned a $7.4 million fee for arranging the Yellowstone loan, according to the creditors’ suit. The club’s loan agreement explicitly stated that up to $351 million of the $375 million loan was intended “for purposes unrelated to the Yellowstone Club” — a stipulation that proves, Mr. Blixseth has asserted in court filings, that he did nothing wrong.

In his court filing last Thursday, Mr. Blixseth says his ex-wife helped decide how the Credit Suisse loan was spent and cites statements she made in family court two years ago in which she says, among other things, that she was “always involved in the day-to-day operations” at Yellowstone.

Ms. Blixseth says she deferred to her husband on financial matters.

“Tim controlled all the money,” she says of her role in Yellowstone’s problems. “I didn’t have access to it.” But she does acknowledge that her name was on many of the financial documents, and that $9 million of the Credit Suisse loan paid off a loan on Porcupine Creek, the residence where she now lives.

“I haven’t wanted to speak out,” she says. “But it’s hard for me to read articles that say: ‘Where are the hundreds of millions of dollars that Tim and Edra took out?’ — like we’re still this one entity.”

Ms. Blixseth says the $375 million loan signaled “the beginning of the end of my personal and business relationship with Tim.” Before the loan, she says, her job was “holding him accountable. But I couldn’t anymore when the Credit Suisse loan came through because he could just say, ‘Too bad. I’ve got the money. I’m gonna do it.’ ”

Ms. Blixseth says that her ex-husband lost $10 million of the Credit Suisse loan speculating in the stock market and that he bought the golf property in Scotland without even visiting it. Membership sales in Yellowstone Club World, meanwhile, were suspended in 2006 for lack of interest.

HERE’S what Yellowstone members say galls them most: Even as the Blixseths spent heaps of money on properties around the world, they neglected the club that they had borrowed against.

They say that for a time, potholes went unrepaired and sewage backed up at the main ski lodge. The power grid was meant for 80 homes; as it strained to meet the needs of 300, the ski lifts would occasionally creak to a halt.

But no one took action until Greg LeMond began examining the Credit Suisse loan. Mr. LeMond, the renowned American cyclist, was an early Yellowstone member and a minority investor. In 2006, he sued Mr. Blixseth and his various corporate entities in a Montana district court, alleging what would eventually number 30 counts of malfeasance. The suit contended that Mr. Blixseth tried to bully his partners into selling their Yellowstone shares. Then, having failed to force that deal, the suit said, Mr. Blixseth obtained the Credit Suisse loan without consulting his investors and without sharing the loan proceeds.

Ms. Blixseth eventually agreed to pay Mr. LeMond and others a $21.5 million settlement; she’s paid only $8 million of that amount, and Mr. LeMond and others are now among her creditors.

In December 2006, Mr. Blixseth made headlines by announcing he was building a Yellowstone Club manse that he boasted would be the most expensive home in the world. Priced at $155 million, the 53,000-square-foot home, called the Pinnacle, would have a heliport, an ice skating rink and underground parking for 20 S.U.V.’s. (The home was never built, but for the driveway. Mr. Blixseth would later sell the site for $10 million.)

Tensions at Yellowstone were rising. Construction of the main lodge wasn’t complete, members grumbled, and was over budget. Some had been waiting for years to move into the lodge’s 23 condos. At one point, someone mistakenly cut the lodge’s main support beam while installing a skylight.

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1 Comments so far ↓

  1. Interested Reader says:

    You should do a follow up invetigative article. Nothing has changed at the Yellowstone Club. Now the corruption is focused on it’s hiring and firing practices and they try to eliminate all minority emplyoees.

    http://www.bozemantalks.com/2010/07/25/the-yellowstone-club-strikes-out-again

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