Actor sues lender, claiming forced sale of Aspen ranch
Actor Don Johnson on Wednesday sued a lending company that he claims forced him to sell his 17-acre Aspen ranch this week for “significantly less than its appraised value.”
Johnson said New York-based D.E. Shaw Laminar Lending Inc. forced him to sell the property Monday for an undisclosed amount by illegally threatening foreclosure.
D.E. Shaw lent Johnson $10.6 million on the property in 2004, but it claimed he wasn’t making timely payments, according to published reports. The company said it would auction off the property if Johnson didn’t pay it $14.5 million by Tuesday.
The Aspen Daily News reported that Johnson made the payment, but according to his suit, he immediately sold the property.
Johnson’s suit in U.S. District Court in Denver also seeks recovery of $500,000 in interest that Johnson paid D.E. Shaw.
AVON
Vail, Forest Service finalize land exchange
Vail Resorts Inc. announced Wednesday it has completed a land exchange with the U.S. Forest Service that will give it about 5 acres at the base of Vail Mountain.
The federal government will receive more than 600 acres in Eagle County’s White River National Forest in return.
The deal had been appealed by Environmental Advocates, a California advocacy group and law firm, and a Vail property owner, who alleged that the exchange parcel was undervalued.
Vail Resorts plans to build 13 4,500-square-foot townhomes on the parcel as part of its “Front Door” project.
DOUGLAS COUNTY
AT&T to offer movie downloads
AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. telephone company, will offer movie downloads for its high- speed Internet customers after an agreement with Vongo, a new service from Liberty Media Corp.’s Douglas County-based Starz Entertainment Group.
The $9.99 monthly subscription offers 1,500 movie and video downloads for playback on television, as well as laptops and personal computers that run on Microsoft Windows, the companies said Wednesday.
DENVER
Sale of Exxon Mobil Utah field completed
Resolute Natural Resources Co. and Window Rock, Ariz.- based Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Co. announced Wednesday they have completed the purchase of Exxon Mobil’s assets in the Greater Aneth Field in southeastern Utah. The interests acquired represent about 4,690 net barrels per day of light, sweet crude oil.
The Greater Aneth Field was discovered in 1956 and at that time was one of the largest oil fields ever discovered in the Lower 48 states, with estimates of original oil in place of about 1.4 billion barrels. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
DENVER
HyperSpace secures $5 million bridge loan
HyperSpace Communications Inc. announced Wednesday it has secured a $5 million bridge loan from existing investors and that it has retained the services of an additional investment bank to act as a placement agent in connection with a potential private placement of up to $25 million.
Last week the company, which creates software that accelerates Web applications over wired and wireless networks, said it may be delisted from the American Stock Exchange by June 30.
OAK BROOK, Ill.
McDonald’s to sell some Chipotle shares
McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant company, plans to sell about 5 million shares in Denver-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., the fast-food chain that went public in January, within the next two months.
Proceeds will be used to buy back shares, Oak Brook, Ill.- based McDonald’s said Wednesday in a statement. McDonald’s, which spun off Chipotle, plans to fully divest its shares by the end of the year.
DENVER
State stays on path of economic recovery
Job growth and low inflation are keeping Colorado on the path to recovery from the last recession, analysts said Tuesday after a federal report ranked the state 10th in the nation for personal income in 2004.
Colorado’s per-capita personal income was $36,113, up 4.6 percent from the year before, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said. Nationally, per-capita personal income was $33,050, up 5 percent.
Boulder had the seventh-highest per-capita personal income among all U.S. metropolitan areas at $43,640, the Commerce Department said. Denver-Aurora was 12th at $40,939.
WESTMINSTER
Hospital to celebrate expansion of unit
St. Anthony North Hospital will celebrate the completion of an 18-month, $7 million expansion and renovation of the Emergency Department on May 3.
The project added 12,000 square feet to the hospital and increased the number of patient treatment rooms from 20 to 32.
NEW YORK
Quattrone case goes to KPMG trial judge
The criminal case of former technology banker Frank Quattrone, whose obstruction-of-justice conviction was reversed last month, has been transferred to the judge who’ll preside at the KPMG LLP tax-shelter trial this fall.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kap lan on Wednesday was assigned to oversee Quattrone’s case, according to the clerk for U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman in New York.
NEW YORK
80-fold capacity boost sought for Internet2
By sending data using different colors of light, operators of the ultra-high-speed Internet2 network are hoping to boost capacity by as much as 80-fold to enable researchers to connect telescopes around the world and perform other bandwidth-intensive tasks.
The Internet2 network, which parallels the regular Internet to let universities, corporations and researchers share large amounts of information in real time, uses shared fiber-optic cables run by Denver-based Qwest.
ATLANTA
Delta, Aeromexico team on repair work
Delta Air Lines Inc., which has cut maintenance jobs as part of its restructuring, is partnering with Aeromexico to market and perform repair work for customers worldwide. Terms were not disclosed.
