Nearly a year after Michael Jackson’s death, the managers overseeing his estate have stabilized its precarious financial situation, but at least one major liability still looms: a $300 million loan due at the end of this year.
Thanks to the surge of fan interest sparked by Mr. Jackson’s death, the singer generated an estimated $200 million posthumously, allowing the estate to pay off tens of millions of dollars in debt and avert foreclosure on the suburban Los Angeles complex where the singer’s mother lives.
Jackson’s absence from the equation has eliminated the chaos and out-of-control spending that reigned during his life. Using income from past music sales and advances against future ones, music-publishing royalties, a film-rights sale and various other licensing deals, the estate has paid off nearly $200 million of the $500 million debt the singer had used to fund his extravagant spending in his final years.
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