State Fair took odd ride to bankruptcy court
from: virginiabusiness.com
January 28, 2012
by Robert Powell
Like a Ferris wheel, the stock market continually goes up and down. State Fair of Virginia officials say it is in bankruptcy court today because lenders forced it to get out at the bottom of the ride.The State Fair of Virginia Inc. (SFVA), the fair’s nonprofit parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection in early December after failing to reach agreement with lenders on restructuring its debt. The bankruptcy stems from the $85 million in debt it accumulated in moving the fair in 2009 from its longtime home in Henrico County to Meadow Farm in Caroline County. SFVA used tax-exempt bonds, taxable bonds and loans to buy the property and build facilities for the new fairgrounds. Those debts were to be repaid using money earned from a $42 million investment portfolio. Today, that portfolio is worth less than half that amount, in part because SFVA was forced to sell its investments in March 2009 after a gut-wrenching plunge in the stock market.“We sold a week after the market hit bottom,” says Curry Roberts, the president of SFVA.But before we dig into the numbers, let’s look at why the fairgrounds now are in Caroline, 21 miles from their former home.read more:http://www.virginiabusiness.com/index.php/opinion/article/state-fair-took-odd-ride-to-bankruptcy-court/316496/
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