Randy Kennedy in the NYT: "The photographer Annie Leibovitz ... has reached an agreement with Colony Capital, a Los Angeles firm, to help her restructure her debt .... Under the deal, Colony — which manages about $30 billion in assets, mostly in real estate — will become Ms Leibovitz’s only creditor .... Ms. Leibovitz averted a foreclosure last summer after she missed a deadline to repay $24 million in loans she owed to Art Capital Group .... Colony, which also controls the rights to the Neverland Ranch in California, ... plans to manage sales of Ms. Leibovitz’s photographic holdings and pursue other business ventures for her so that she can concentrate on her career."
Felix Salmon says it's a smart move for Leibovitz: "[Colony's] unlikely to start foreclosing on her assets in the way that Art Capital is prone to do. Technically, this is a debt deal: Colony has bought Art Capital’s loan. But my guess is that Colony is looking at it more like an equity deal: they expect to work with Leibovitz to start generating an income stream for both of them which is going to last more or less indefinitely."
