Free Republic

SoftBank is in very advanced talks to take control of embattled work space company WeWork, according to people familiar with the matter. SoftBank, led by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, plans to spend somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion on new funding and existing shares, sources say. The deal will value WeWork between $7.5 billion to $8 billion on a pre-funding basis and could be announced as soon as Tuesday. It is SoftBank itself taking control, not the start-up focused Vision Fund. After the move, Softbank would then have as much as 70% or more control of WeWork.

The price of WeWork’s U.S. junk bond fell to an all-time low on Tuesday, last trading at 78 cents on the dollar, as the company weighed financing options including a package that may include at least $2 billion of unsecured notes with a 15% coupon. The office sharing company’s May 2025 7.875% junk bond worth $702 million was last down 12.5%, down 25.7% from a record high in mid-August.

Some board members and large investors in WeWork are privately discussing whether and how to replace the company’s co-founder, Adam Neumann, as chief executive to salvage the company’s fortunes, three people involved in the talks said. Among those now favoring removing the charismatic but sometimes erratic Mr. Neumann is SoftBank, the Japanese technology giant that is the biggest investor in the co-working company. The discussions have come as some major money managers have said that they would not invest in WeWork unless an experienced operator was brought in, these people said. For the moment, the talks about Mr. Neumann’s role...

My father built a small business from scratch with years of sweat equity and many weeks and months away from home. He employed about 100 people, and by the end of his working years, the business was highly successful. He became a millionaire. He lived the American dream. He sold a product that people wanted, provided a solid income for many families and gave lots of money to our church and numerous other charities. And every year he paid his taxes. Over the course of his lifetime, he paid millions of dollars in income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, property...

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The Press have already abridged the freedom of information, the right not to be lied to. The media megalopoly, the inescapable leftist mind-rape hegemony, have already irretrievably stolen our right to know. They have already suceeded in a coup d'etat, the same stroke of state as in Edward R. Murrow's 3/9/1954 See It...

Want proof taxes can actually go down? In the last three years, nine states have eliminated or lowered their estate taxes, mostly by raising exemptions. And more reductions are coming. Minnesota lawmakers recently raised the state’s estate-tax exemption to $2.1 million retroactive to January, and the exemption will rise to $2.4 million next year. Maryland will raise its $3 million exemption to $4 million next year. New Jersey’s exemption, which used to rank last at $675,000 per person, rose to $2 million per person this year. Next year New Jersey is scheduled to eliminate its estate tax altogether, joining about...

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro reportedly left behind millions in private mansions, yachts, private islands, and even a personal cheese factory. While the Castro family has imposed a mandatory nine-day mourning period over Cuba, questions remain as to who will inherit the head of state’s fortune. While fellow communists and assorted global leftist elites are using the occasion of his death to praise Fidel Castro as a hero of the poor, reports from both defectors within Castro’s world and journalists using publicly available information have estimated the Castro family fortune to be in the millions. The closest realistic number estimating Castro’s net...

President Barack Obama isn’t afraid to enact his agenda over the will of Congress. At this late stage in his presidency, he’s still overreaching his authority to push through an agenda; his most recent overstep being an effort to unilaterally raise the federal estate tax. Conservatives have successfully lessened the impact of the estate tax, colloquially known as the “death tax,” in recent years. In 2000, before George W. Bush became president, the death tax had a rate of 55 percent and struck families with assets valued at $675,000 or more.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A legal battle has erupted over the estate of former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson. That legal battle comes in the former of a lawsuit filed late Tuesday by Thompson's two adult sons -- nine months after the death of the actor turned politician. In the complaint, sons Tony and Dan Thompson question a flurry of changes to their father's estate in the days before his death back in November.

When bluesman B.B. King died last year, he bequeathed to the world a body of work spanning six decades that brought joy and comfort to millions. The crooner of "The Thrill Is Gone" and "Sweet Sixteen" transformed American music, inspiring such rockers as Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson and Buddy Guy. King was 89 when he succumbed to congestive heart failure in his Las Vegas home and died peacefully in his sleep on May 14, 2015.The year since then has been decidedly less peaceful. While neither of King's two marriages resulted in children, he managed to leave behind a vast family:...

Scott Killerud was about to throw away a mailing about the 2016 enrollment period for MNsure last November when something caught his eye. "Just as I was going to drop it in the trash, I was like - wait a second. What did I just read?" the Pine County farmer said.

At stake in the new lawsuit could be holograms, avatars and CGI of deceased celebrities The only thing more legally troublesome than a celebrity's rights is a dead celebrity's rights. Just look at Marilyn Monroe, the blond bombshell who died in 1962, but continues to be the center of one legal fight after another. The latest is a lawsuit filed on Wednesday against The Estate of Marilyn Monroe that contends her statutory heirs are getting in the way of a computer-generated character called "Virtual Marilyn." the vanguard are a phalanx of intellectual property lawyers who are fighting over issues like...

RANT! It's a frustrating situation to have in your hands a check from the US Treasury for over $141,000 and you can't do a darned thing with it except frame it and hang it on the wall as a souvenir. My MIL passed away in 2011, and my wife (as the only surviving relative) was named in the will as the executor of the estate and successor to the trust. The will was filed with the courts in L.A. and the long process began. We paid the IRS $240K the first year in estimated estate taxes along with a request...

Special to the Star-Telegram One year after his death, hundreds of items from the estate of Van Cliburn are going on sale at Christie’s auction house in New York. The pianist, who died in February 2013, filled his Westover Hills home with items encountered during his world travels — fine art, furnishings, tableware — and selected with a veteran collector’s eye. Two years ago, Cliburn parted with some of his most valuable treasures at a Christie’s auction of what was billed as “The Van Cliburn Collection.” That sale earned almost $4.4 million, beating a presale estimate of $3 million. The...

The number of Americans owning pets is at a record high, and more people are making provisions in their wills to provide for these animals after they're gone. But to ensure your pet is cared for as you intend, it's important to set up a pet trust—an arrangement that 46 states permit. "Pet trusts aren't just for the wealthy," says Frances Carlisle, a trust and estates attorney in New York. For most pet owners, she adds, the goal "is to make sure a plan exists for the care of the animal." Pet trusts can take effect either after you die...

This policy brief was prepared under contract #HHS-100-03-0022 between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy (DALTCP) and Thomson/MEDSTAT. For additional information about the study, you may visit the DALTCP home page at http://aspe.hhs.gov/_/office_specific/daltcp.cfm or contact the ASPE Project Officer, Hunter McKay, at HHS/ASPE/DALTCP, Room 424E, H.H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20201. His e-mail address is: Hunter.McKay@hhs.gov.

For supporters of the repeal of North Carolina’s estate tax, the passage serves as a big neon "come on home" message to ultra-wealthy individuals who have kept a primary residence in another state to avoid the tax. "A tax that affects somewhere between a dozen and 100 families each year in a state with 9 million-plus people is fundamentally unfair," said Dallas Woodhouse, the director of the N.C. chapter of the conservative advocacy group Americans For Prosperity. For opponents, the repeal – retroactive to Jan. 1 – serves as a prime example of conservative legislators favoring the wealthy few over...

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children By Michael Snyder on November 20th, 2012 If you have a farm or a small business, would you like to pass it on to your children when you die? Well, unless Congress does something, it is going to become much, much harder to do that starting next year. Right now, there is a 5 million dollar estate tax exemption and anything above that is taxed at 35 percent. But on January 1st, the exemption will go down to 1 million dollars...

the estate tax -- also known as the "death tax."... set to soar at the beginning of 2013 ... The estate tax dates back to 1916 when then-President Woodrow Wilson imposed the tax of 1 to 10 percent on the wealthy because World War I reduced federal government revenues. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the tax rose to 77 percent, as Congress tried to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated among a few powerful and super-rich families. Ironically, many nations historically more concerned with class and wealth -- namely Russia and China -- have since abandoned their estate taxes.

(Being purchased for them by Penny Pritzker and wealthy Chicagoans) [ Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, has been bragging about getting to live in Hawaii next, in a $35 million beachfront mansion after leaving the White House in January 2013.  "It was fun while it lasted", Miss Marion is quoted by Chicagoans as saying, "but wait until you see the place they're buying for Michelle and Barack!" ] Part 1 of this report — HEREPart 2 of this report — HERE***************************Today has been declared “National Empty Chair Day”, in honor of Clint Eastwood’s speech on the closing night of the Republican...