Features
Wuhlheide For Sale
The latest report from Michael I. Goldberg says the building is for sale and the deal should be wrapped when the potential buyer has completed due diligence. It’s Goldberg’s eighth report since a federal court in Florida appointed him to sort out Utsick’s affairs in January 2006.
He isn’t disclosing the name of the mystery bidder, but SMG Europe, which runs the 16,000-capacity Loreley Open Air amphitheatre on the banks of The Rhine at Freilichtbuhne, has confirmed it hasn’t made an offer for the Berlin venue.
Goldberg had talks four years ago with venue operators including SMG, AEG and Live Nation, but the lease Utsick’s company had on the 50-year-old, horseshoe-shaped outdoor venue had only a year left plus an option for five more years.
Utsick’s The Entertainment Group Fund Inc. (TEGFI) has had 75 percent of the management of the Wuhlheide since 1997, when the private company running the city-owned venue spent about euro 10 million on upgrades and then went bust.
TEGFI’s partners in “The Wuhlheide Partnership,” the company in receivership, are Berlin-based promoter Wolfgang Kollen, who runs the 50-year-old venue and has 15 percent of the company, and Bruce Glatman, who put the two of them together and holds the other 10 percent.
Goldberg instructed Kollen to pick up the five-year option on behalf of the Wuhlheide Partnership, and then promptly hit the city with a euro 2 million estimate for upkeep and repairs.
The city balked and offered the site to the Wuhlheide Partnership for euro 3.5 million, which whittled the price down to euro 550,000 before agreeing to the deal.
The Wuhlheide, which was named best venue at the German Live Entertainment Awards in 2008, runs a dozen or so shows during the summer season and each one was raking in about euro 70,000 in 2006.
By that time, Utsick and his partners already got back about 90 percent of the $2.7 million they put into the project.