The last month or so has not been the best of times for Phil Falcone. Harbinger Capital’s flagship is down, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and some others have pulled their money, investors have been giving him shit for borrowing $113 million from one of his funds (where redemptions had been frozen) in order to pay personal taxes, he had to put up his art as collateral to borrow even more cash (for what, it’s unclear), he’s being investigated by the SEC and Wilbur, the family’s dancing pig, has been such a god damn bitch. He told the Times none of this is any way a big deal (“The last thing I’m thinking about in the morning is whether I have a cash-flow problem,” he said) and now, he’s be forced to defend his liquidity again. This time, with regard to the mortgage he took out on his house over the summer, after buying it for $49 million in cash.
According to documents filed with the New York City Department of Finance, Mr. Falcone and his wife took out a $22.5 million mortgage on their upper-east side townhouse this summer. According to the documents, the Falcones received the 30-year adjustable-rate mortgage, at an initial interest rate of 2.357%, from Citi Mortgage on May 20, 2010. It is the only mortgage on the home, located on East 67th St. The Falcones bought 27-room mansion in 2008 for a reported $49 million in cash — making it the second most expensive home ever sold in Manhattan. The Falcones spent more than a year renovating the home, formerly owned by Penthouse Magazine founder Bob Guccione.
In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Falcone said “This is a normal ordinary course mortgage financing on Mr. Falcone’s home that was completed seven months ago and has no relevance to Harbinger Capital Partners’ business or its investors.”
So get off his ass! Rather than suggest Phil or Harbinger Capital are having money problems we should 1) applaud him for his creativity (obviously the rationale was to borrow at 3%, invest it, make 10% and pocket the difference) and 2) preemptively THANK him for the nice things** he’s going to buy everyone with the return on the money.
**Your very own Wilburs, which do not come cheap.
Hey – that new Golden Trough ain’t gonna pay fer itself.
Yeah, I can type too. What of it?
True story: I was in line behind Phil at Agway when he was buying feed for Wilbur and they declined his TD Bank Debit Card.
Chill, it’s only a Citi mortgage. Plenty more where that came from…
can you say…. tailspin
He must have pulled out his Chase card next then? I hear those are “as good as Gold”?
hedging against inflation, the guy is a GENIUS! Phil, we’d like to have you pop by for an interview this week.
-DE Shaw
You know pig tails really aren’t that curly, right?
^ Fmr LEH Quant
Kinda random it I can’t hear the word “tailspin” without think of the semi-lame Disney cartoon with Balloo the Bear.
I’ll be there!
-PF
What? No Cash Advance Americas where he lives?
how was it semi-lame?
we know of two hedgies marrying latinas… what about a black?
- Stedman G.
hey… what… THE PIG IN CHARLOTTES WEB IS NAMED WILBUR!!11!1!11