Skip to main content

LightSquared Creditors Will Get The Documents They Want, After They've Pried Them Out Of Phil Falcone's Cold Dead Hands

  • Author:
  • Updated:
    Original:

LightSquared's lenders says Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners won't hand over documents they are requesting as part of an investigation over whether they can pursue claims against Harbinger and the wireless satellite company. In a Tuesday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, lawyers for a group of LightSquared lenders owed more than $1 billion said it "appears" LightSquared received "preferential" loans last summer without any investment by Harbinger, which owns most of LightSquared's stock and has four of the company's six board seats. The lender group says it has the right to subpoena Harbinger as part of its June agreement to allow LightSquared to use cash secured by its loans. But Harbinger, it says, has refused. "Harbinger's basis for its blanket refusal is that 'as these cases progress, it will become clear that sufficient value exists to pay all creditors in full under a Chapter 11 plan,'" said the lenders, whose loans are secured by all of LightSquared's assets. [DowJones]

Related

News

LightSquared Creditors Seek Permission To Go After Mrs. Phil Falcone's Shoe Collection

Remember Phil Falcone? Hedge fund manager about yea high? Cuts his hair like he's still playing professional hockey? Is betting the farm on a company called LightSquared that "seeks to create connectivity for all" but in doing so might "cost 794 lives in aviation accidents over 10 years with disruptions to satellite-aided navigation" and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last May? Anyway, LightSquared's creditors were in court today asking for the right to go after Big Phil/Harbinger, who they believe screwed them big time.

News

Phil Falcone's Summer Is Looking Up

Hedge Funds

Phil Falcone Hasn't Given Up On LightSquared

...and he hopes investors haven't either, not that they have much choice in the matter. If recent performance has been difficult to swallow, comfort thyself with the fact that lots of things get worse before they get better. Falcone is giving this thing 150% and its genius will reveal itself in due time. Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone's clients got another dose of bad news when the billionaire investor said his flagship fund lost 29.6 percent in February largely because of ailing telecommunications company LightSquared Inc...Falcone often takes his time, relative to other hedge fund managers, in releasing monthly performance numbers...Falcone, who has bank rolled the company by having invested over $3 billion, held out hope for LightSquared's future when he told investors on an investor call in mid-February that he remained committed to the project. [Reuters]

News

Phil Falcone Would Like To Clear Up A Few Things

News

Phil Falcone Cooperating With "Informal Investigations" Into Trades

Hedge Funds

Temporary Setbacks Aside, You Haven't Seen The Last Of LightSquared, Phil Falcone

Hedge Funds

The Only Thing That Keeps Phil Falcone Up At Night Is Counting All The Money He's Going To Make Off Of LightSquared

From outward appearances, the past couple years have been a stressful time for Phil Falcone. After making billions of dollars for himself and for his investors on subprime, the Harbinger Capital Partners founder provoked the ire of many a client by tying up a good chunk of their money in a wireless start-up called LightSquared (a company the Federal Communications Commission is no fan of, due to the fact that it reportedly interferes with GPS devices used on land, sea, and in outer space), by borrowing $113 million from a gated fund in order to pay personal taxes, and by only allowing certain investors (Goldman Sachs) to get out while freezing redemptions for others and then telling them they could leave if they found some else to pick up their stake. Assets under management at Harbinger have dropped $23 billion, from a peak of $26 billion. For a variety of reasons, the Securities and Exchange commission wants to see him banned from the industry. A worried Bloomberg News reporter recently revealed he has a problem with pit stains ("[his] shirt appeared darker under the arms in his office last month"), which wouldn't pose an issue were his shirt supply not dwindling rapidly ("One place Falcone is visiting less frequently is Domenico Vacca, the New York boutique where suits retail for $3,900 and shirts $490, according to a person with knowledge of his purchases. He orders every four or five months [now] compared with every two or three months between 2006 and 2009"). For all these reasons and more (like, say, a sensitive and highly-strung pig who is not happy), some people might assume that Falcone would at best be in deep contemplative mode regarding how things got this far at worst be freaking the fuck out, particularly over the possibilities that 1) the SEC is going to file civil fraud charges and 2) if LightSquared doesn't pan out, he's going to lose a whole lot of money. Those people, however, would be wrong. Not only is he not at all worried that his passion project won't work out ( “I am not losing sleep on this -- why would I lose sleep?” he asked Bloomberg), but he dares anyone to come up with a reason for why he's not going to make $20+ billion on this thing. “This is not for the faint of heart,” Falcone said. “I’ve never looked at it as having $4 billion or $25 billion as defining Philip Falcone. But who’s to say I won’t get back to $25 billion?” What? It could happened. You don't know. Falcone Waits for Icahn Doubling Down on Network [Bloomberg]

Hedge Funds

Phil Falcone Reveals Genius New Plan (Update)

LightSquared is a wireless venture that seeks to create “convenient connectivity for all." But those of you who've been keeping up know that to one man, it's so much more. That man, of course, being hedge fund manager Phil Falcone. LightSquared is his dream. His baby. His world. His everything. And, because he has poured his heart, soul, and firm's money into LightSquared, it is also the thing that stands to make or break Harbinger Capital. Success will mean billions for Falcone and his investors. Failure will mean Wilbur Falcone selling her eggs to a barren couple willing to pay top dollar for the DNA of a blue-eyed classically trained singer with an IQ of 150 and legs like Tina Turner. Unfortunately, things have not been going so well for LightSquared. The yachting community worries that GPS interference caused by LS will result in boats getting lost at sea. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says LightSquared“may degrade precision services that track hurricanes, guide farmers and help build flood defenses.” The FAA put out a study that estimates LS could “cost 794 lives in aviation accidents over 10 years with disruptions to satellite-aided navigation.” The only person defending the thing (besides Phil) is Karl Rove. Meanwhile, the SEC wants to see Falcone banned from the industry, Bloomberg News has put a reporter on the "Phil Falcone Pit Stains" beat, and his investors, for the most part, despise him for petty reasons that no rational adults would ever get upset about, like borrowing $113 million from a gated fund in order to pay personal taxes and tying up much of their capital in a side project building walkie-talkies that might not pan out on account of the growing opinion that it might kill a few people. At this time, a lesser man might decide to cut his losses and/or look within and say "Maybe my investors aren't the problem, maybe I'm the problem." Phil Falcone is no such man. He's figured out a few things and what they boil down to is that his impatient, pissy investors are what is standing in the way of LightSquared soaring, which it will, when it is ready. And if those pricks won't agree to stick around for an investment time horizon of inifinty, he'll find people who will. Harbinger Capital Partners' Philip Falcone, speaking at the SALT hedge-fund conference Wednesday in Las Vegas, hinted at an initial public offering, CNBC's Kate Kelly reported. "Harbinger is actually considering getting more permanent capital," Falcone said, according to Kelly, who said it suggests a potential IPO. "I'm moving toward a more permanent capital vehicle. We need to focus more on control," Falcone said, according to Kelly. No one said going from not having the cash to cover taxes to $25 billion was going to be easy. Harbinger's Falcone hints at potential IPO -CNBC [MarketWatch] Update: Falcone claims to have no idea what CNBC is talking about (asking Fox Business, "What the fuck would I IPO?")