New York- A bitter new bankruptcy fight could get porn prince Bob Guccione booted from his Penthouse magazine empire and left without any income.
The drama took a nasty turn this week for the broke 73-year-old publisher when an investment group that controls the company’s IOUs filed a new reorganization plan that, for the first time, fires Guccione without a dime.
The group, led by Florida investor Marc Bell, had earlier welcomed Guccione into its reorganization plan and offered to pay him $500,000 a year.
But Guccione’s role was terminated in Bell’s new plan, which would spend $80 million to pay off creditors and holders of bonds and preferred securities.
Bell’s group owns 87 percent of the bonds, and 75 percent of the preferred securities.
Sources said Guccione earlier had agreed to join Bell’s original reorganization plan to revive the crippled title, but he abruptly dropped out last week on the eve that Bell’s plan was to be confirmed in bankruptcy court.
Instead, Guccione – bankrolled by Mexican investor Enrique Molinas – put up a last-minute rival plan that prohibited Bell’s investors from cashing out their preferred shares.
Guccione also would get $1 million annually for 10 years in the plan.
Guccione’s lawyer, Robert Feinstein, last night blasted Bell’s new plan as ” a last-gasp tactic” to harm a fully-funded reorganization. “We’ve requested he withdraw it,” he said.
Bell said he isn’t backing down. Both sides will slug it out in New York bankruptcy court on March 19.