“With a foreclosure auction just days away, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra—with a major assist from the group’s biggest backer, Martha Ingram—was able to reach a last-minute agreement to pay off its lenders and keep its $123.5 million Schermerhorn Symphony Center concert hall out of the banks’ hands,” writes Walter Roche in Tuesday’s (6/25) Tennessean. “Symphony treasurer Kevin Crumbo … said the settlement closes out all the previously existing commercial bank loans.… Moving forward, a realty company owned by Ingram now will hold the remaining $20 million mortgage on the Schermerhorn. In a ‘letter to patrons’ posted on its website, the symphony stated that Ingram ‘stepped forward to provide some of the liquidity needed to close this transaction.’ … Ingram said part of her contribution was the result of ‘the acceleration of a long-term charitable gift.’ … The confrontation with the banks was triggered in mid-March when symphony officials decided not to renew a letter of credit backing the $102 million bond issue, which financed the original construction of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. The interest costs for renewal were simply too high, symphony officials said. Regions Bank, trustee for the bondholders, then called in the bonds, drawing down on the existing letter of credit just before it was due to expire. The lenders then announced they were initiating foreclosure proceedings and set a June 28 date for an auction of the concert hall.”
Posted June 25, 2013
