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Agreement Gives Leibovitz More Time to Repay Loans

By ALLEN SALKIN

In a 13th-hour agreement on Friday, the photographer Annie Leibovitz avoided having to give up her homes and her artistic property to the finance company that had lent her $24 million. But all she may have won is time.

The Art Capital Group, which specializes in loans secured by artwork, had given Ms. Leibovitz a $24 million one-year loan that was due on Tuesday. As collateral, she pledged the rights to all of her intellectual property, including her photographs, as well as three adjoining town houses in Greenwich Village and a home in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

On Friday, three days after the deadline, Ms. Leibovitz and Art Capital announced that they had reached an agreement on a loan extension.

Ms. Leibovitz, 59, perhaps the most famous and best-compensated living photographer, has been enduring a well-chronicled and much-puzzled-over financial meltdown.

As part of the loan agreement, Ms. Leibovitz gave Art Capital the right to act as her agent in selling her archive of photos, including her negatives, and her homes, according to legal documents.

The company sued Ms. Leibovitz in July, claiming that she was blocking its efforts to prepare her homes and photos for sale, and was not paying loan-related fees. On Sept. 1, her lawyers won a one-month extension to respond to the lawsuit. As part of the agreement, Art Capital withdrew its suit.

In a joint statement the two sides said that Ms. Leibovitz had “purchased from Art Capital its rights to act as exclusive agent in the sale of her real property and copyrights” and that she will “therefore retain control of those assets within the context of the loan agreement.” The property and copyrights remain as collateral.

Throughout her financial difficulties, Ms. Leibovitz has said little publicly. On Friday she spoke only through the joint statement, which quoted her as saying, “In these challenging times I am appreciative to Art Capital for all they have done to resolve this matter and for their cooperation and continued support.”

But legal experts said her troubles were not over.

“If the original loan term was a year, typically the extension could be as short as 30 days or it could be a year,” said Eliot Zuckerman, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan who is not involved with either party.

To win the extension, Ms. Leibovitz might have agreed to sell something valuable quickly, like the rights to some photographs or a home, or to pay more interest.

“The great likelihood is she had to demonstrate to them how she is going to come up with the money and how soon she is going to come up with the money,” Mr. Zuckerman said. “Of course there could have been an interest rate increase as well.”

Friends said yesterday that Ms. Leibovitz had the tenacity to figure out a way to pay off her loan this time, but that she might have to change her relationship to money fundamentally.

“Is she scrappy enough to pull this out?” said Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair. “Absolutely. I’d never count Annie out on anything.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/ar....html?ref=arts