Word: parretti
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ARRESTED. GIANCARLO PARRETTI, 58, fugitive financier; near Orvieto, Italy. Parretti, whose $1.3 billion takeover of MGM in 1990 and subsequent default on an $888 million loan nearly destroyed the company, fled the U.S. in 1996 after being convicted of perjury and evidence tampering...
...curtain has been rung down on the long-running farce starring would-be film mogul Giancarlo Parretti. Last week a Delaware judge confirmed Parretti's removal from the board of MGM-Pathe studios. A onetime waiter who bought the studio in 1990 for $1.3 billion, Parretti accumulated huge debts during his half-year tenure as CEO, forcing the company into involuntary bankruptcy. The studio's chief lender, the French bank Credit Lyonnais, pumped in $145 million to restore solvency but demanded his ouster. The Delaware judge agreed, condemning Parretti's mismanagement of the firm. The downward slide continued...
...Parretti has faced ballooning troubles since acquiring the studio. He has been slapped with two lawsuits, one just two weeks ago, by producers who claim he sold the rights to shared properties -- the Pink Panther films and the James Bond films -- too cheaply. In January a court in Italy upheld an old conviction for fraudulent bankruptcy that Parretti has been fighting for nearly a year. The entrepreneur has also been shamed in Hollywood's most public court, the box office. All the films MGM has released since the acquisition (including Rocky V, Not Without My Daughter and Desperate Hours) have...
...Counting Parretti out would be a mistake. After all, he bought MGM from Kirk Kerkorian for $1.4 billion despite deafening gossip that he would never come up with the dough. He has a long history of being dismissed and then, as an MGM insider puts it, "pulling a rabbit -- even a roaring lion...
...Parretti pins his latest woes on his being looked upon as an outsider and an Italian. Such bellyaching doesn't wash with Hollywood veterans, many of whom were on hand at last week's paparazzi-and-stars dinner in Parretti's honor by the National Council on the Aging. Parretti won the group's recognition after dining with council chairman Daniel Thursz and wondering aloud what the highest donations tended to be. "Oh, a few hundred thousand, I guess," remarked Thursz casually. A day later, Parretti promised the charity $500,000 -- to be paid in five installments...