Friday, November 02, 2007

THAT'S EX-BEER BARON TO YOU

The award for least surprising business story of the year goes to the now ex-beer baron, seeing as the Globe & Mail hinted at it several months ago:

"Title searches on D'Angelo's manufacturing operations reveal $100 million in debt obligations to Barry Sherman through a series of companies, including Wasanda Enterprises and a numbered company that names Sherman as director."
For those of you who like numbers, the following would represent a profit margin of minus-1,100 per cent:

"... for a brief period, D'Angelo Brands Inc. was publicly traded on the Nasdaq. Records show that in 2002 the company lost $4.8 million on sales of $435,000 worth of juice and iced tea and such."
Well, at least the man has his music:

"...he has become infamous for some of his many public stunts, among them singing the national anthem in the style of a lounge singer at a Toronto Argonauts game to a cascade of boos from fans. He also gained some negative notoriety when he was charged in June with sexual assault, following allegations from a 21-year-old woman. The matter is still before the courts."
Don't worry... that acting career is bound to work out, right? And there's the singing career too... the enduring mental image is of the ex-beer baron in the a recording studio putting all that talent on loan from God to a cover of The Touch from the original Transformers movie.

"After all is said and done, you never walk, you never run, you're a winnnnnner!"

Sure you are.

Related:
Frank D'Angelo moves upstairs at brewery (Jennifer Wells, Toronto Star)
D'Angelo sells interest... (Garry Marr, Financial Post)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, the company was bleeding red ink all over the place, and was $100 million in the hole to Dr. Sherman. Frank's own house is mortgaged to the teeth. In no way, though, should anyone suggest that he didn't have enough money to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins, and that his sniffing around the Renegades was just a PR stunt. If you do, he might sue you.

Being replaced as President by a 24 year old. Ouch. That's gotta sting.

sager said...

According to the Post, Jonathon Sherman is 23... the Star says 24.

By tomorrow, he'll be 22.

Phil said...

I like to refer to this development as "karma".

Anonymous said...

I wonder what effect Steelback's massive debt and inability to turn a profit will have on all of its sports sponsorships and naming rights deals. If I ran the GP of Toronto or the Steelback Centre in the Sault, I think I'd be a little worried.
Question for Sager: When Frankie boy set the lawyers on you, were they his lawyers or was Steelback footing the bill?

sager said...

That's a good point about the sponsorship deals.

I'm afraid I don't know who was paying for their bullying-through-the-legal-system. It didn't really make a difference to me how it was being paid for.

Anonymous said...

I'm just thinking that, with his personal debt, and without Steelback's funds, life is going to be very different for Frankie. Hard to sue someone if you have to pay your own lawyer's fees. It will also be a lot harder for Frankie to get his band on stage when he isn't underwriting the cost of the whole event.
Life won't be the same without access to Barry Sherman's money.