The Greenbrier Hotel, the historic West Virginia lodging establishment, is at the center of a controversy that encompasses the upcoming election and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) chief Jamie Dimon.
WCHS-TV reports the Greenbrier is owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and his family. Justice is a Republican running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Joe Manchin, a longtime Democrat who recently switched his affiliation to an Independent.
Justice bought the historic Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009. The property dates back to the 1700s and is considered a National Historic Landmark.
A legal advertisement placed in the West Virginia Daily News announced a Notice of Trustee’s Sale on the Greenbrier County Courthouse steps on Aug. 27 because of a loan on the property that was declared to be in default. Justice’s family issued a statement that it had been working with JPMorgan in good faith under a mutual agreement since 2021 to successfully reduce the debt by $9.4 million – but JPMorgan sold the loan to Beltway Capital, which immediately declared the loan to be in default. The foreclosure only covers the 60.5 acres of the hotel and parking area and not the entire complex.
The Justice family accused the foreclosure to be a “political stunt” by Dimon, citing his ties to the Democrat Party, adding they would not allow the Greenbrier to be sold.
The West Virginia Democratic Party released a statement stating the foreclosure had nothing to do with Dimon or Democrats, but was due to “the Governor’s failure to pay his creditors, including the millions owed the state tax department on sales tax receipts from the Greenbrier.”
Cover photo courtesy Fortune Global Forum / Flickr Creative Commons; property photo courtesy of The Greenbrier.
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Operative idea was that he was working down the debt according to the terms of an existing agreement. Can’t these new people negotiate something as well?