Laettner owes millions of dollars to Shawne Merriman?

[rsvman]

Did any of you see this story, linked at the CBS Sportline's NCAA basketball site? According to the story, Laettner and Brian Davis borrowed a cool 3 mill from Mr. Merriman, which they apparently did not pay back the way he thought the agreement stated they should.

Has anybody heard about this story before?

I don't even know if it's true, but it sure doesn't paint the ex-Duke stars in a very good light. As if the Laettner haters needed any more ammunition....

[Bluedog]

Did any of you see this story, linked at the CBS Sportline's NCAA basketball site? According to the story, Laettner and Brian Davis borrowed a cool 3 mill from Mr. Merriman, which they apparently did not pay back the way he thought the agreement stated they should.

Has anybody heard about this story before?

I don't even know if it's true, but it sure doesn't paint the ex-Duke stars in a very good light. As if the Laettner haters needed any more ammunition....

It was linked on DBR's front page yesterday:

http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/articles/?p=37666
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/shawne-merriman-awarded-3-8-million-by-court-in-suit-against-laettner.html

[sagegrouse]

Did any of you see this story, linked at the CBS Sportline's NCAA basketball site? According to the story, Laettner and Brian Davis borrowed a cool 3 mill from Mr. Merriman, which they apparently did not pay back the way he thought the agreement stated they should.

Has anybody heard about this story before?

I don't even know if it's true, but it sure doesn't paint the ex-Duke stars in a very good light. As if the Laettner haters needed any more ammunition....

I don't know any of the details, but from 1995 until recently Brian Davis and Laettner were partners in Blue Devil Ventures, later BD Ventures. BDV was basically a real estate development company and did a number of successful projects in revitalizing downtown Durham. They had generated enough cash and chutzpah to sign a deal to buy the Memphis Grizzlies, which they were unable to close.

One can easily surmise that BDV, like almost all real estate development firms, has had big trouble the last three years. It is not clear what the financial relationship was between BD Ventures and Merriman, except that the article refers to it as a $3 million loan.

Again, knowing nothing about the details, each project would likely be a separate company (LLC, most likely) into which investors would place money. BDV would have a management contract and the principals (Christian and Brian) would likely also be investors. A complex linked set of companies and various indemnification clauses would be designed to protect the BDV partners from liability if a project were to go south.

It sounds like the judge didn't buy the story that Christian and Brian were not liable for repayment. I'd say, stay tuned. There could be other investors, and there will certainly be appeals. And we haven't heard from the banks.

sagegrouse

[Greg_Newton]

Sad to hear regardless, but does this mean that the phase of West Village that includes renovating the huge Liggett building on Main Street is no more? That would really be too bad, not only for Laettner and Davis but for Durham.

[arnie]

Sad to hear regardless, but does this mean that the phase of West Village that includes renovating the huge Liggett building on Main Street is no more? That would really be too bad, not only for Laettner and Davis but for Durham.

Other parties are actively looking at redeveloping that building into residential use.