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Almost two dozen companies owned by German financier Lars Windhorst are due to be sold at a foreclosure auction this month following a court order obtained by the family company of US billionaire Frank McCourt.
The auction is the latest attempt to claw back debts from the businessman, who in recent years has been hit with multiple lawsuits by a series of creditors, with claims reaching into hundreds of millions of euros.
It is a setback for Windhorst, who has strived to turn around Tennor Holding, his ailing investment company, following the insolvency of a set of businesses it owned, ranging from medical robotics to luxury lingerie.
The auction is the result of a lengthy legal dispute between Windhorst and McCourt Global over the sale of its shares in an international showjumping competition to Tennor Holding.
A subsidiary of McCourt Global — which was founded by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt — has obtained court orders allowing it to sell shares of Tennor Holding’s subsidiaries, in order to satisfy a debt of $106mn plus interest.
In 2020, Tennor Holding agreed to buy 50 per cent of showjumping business Global Champions from McCourt Global for €169mn but then tried to back out citing financial difficulties due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Windhorst later agreed to proceed with the deal but failed to comply with the payment terms relating to the share purchase, according to court records. In April, a Dutch judge ruled that Windhorst could be detained if he travelled to the Netherlands for failing to comply with asset disclosure obligations in the case.
The auction, scheduled for October 16 in Amsterdam, involves 22 companies registered in the Netherlands and Switzerland. They include La Perla Fashion Holding — the previously listed parent company of luxury lingerie maker La Perla, whose UK arm was wound up in November last year over unpaid tax debt — as well as the company through which Windhorst previously owned Berlin football club Hertha Berlin, according to a public auction notice. It does not include Tennor Holding, Windhorst’s main investment company.
The notice warns that information about the companies that form part of the auction “may not be accurate or current”. Tennor and the companies had “not fully co-operated . . . despite various court orders to that effect”, and had “refused to allow the bailiff access to their share registers”, according to the document.
The notice further cautions that no assurances could be given that the companies owned any meaningful assets or that their shares had any value and that they were not free from encumbrances or third-party rights.
McCourt Global declined to comment when asked how much money it hoped to raise from the auction.
Over the past decade, Windhorst raised billions of dollars from investment groups and wealthy individuals to fund his business ventures, primarily through bonds. However, he has faced multiple lawsuits from aggrieved creditors who have claimed that he failed to honour repayment agreements.
Illiquid bonds linked to Windhorst’s companies were at the centre of a high-profile scandal at France’s H2O Asset Management, which was one of Windhorst’s major backers and at one time had an exposure of more than €2.3bn to Windhorst-linked securities.
In recent years, the financier has pursued new deals through a Swiss entity called Tennor International. In July, Nathaniel Rothschild, the scion of the Rothschild banking family, agreed to take a minority stake in Tennor and act as executive chair.
Windhorst did not provide a comment for publication.