The longest, loneliest line in Springfield could be the line waiting for money from the estate of Springfield entrepreneur and philanthropist John Q. Hammons.
Locally, a Missouri State University official said the school is still receiving payments on a $30 million pledge designed to support the construction of JQH Arena, but Drury University is hedging its bets and has joined 16 claimants in the probate case that is sorting out Hammons’ assets almost a year after his death.
The problem for those in line for a piece of the Hammons’ money pie is that the inventory of his personal assets – not including what is in his trust or what he and his wife owned together – lists only one piece of property: an old van.
According to Greene County Probate Court documents, Hammons’ inventory of personal property comprises one 2000 Ford E-250 van valued at $1,577.
Claims amount to roughly $370 million, collectively, by lenders U.S. Bank and PNC Bank, the city of La Vista, Neb., Drury and the American Heart Association.
At MSU, Hammons made a pledge in 2006 to support the construction of JQH Arena. According to Brent Dunn, executive director of the MSU Foundation, payments are scheduled to come in biannually for the next 17 years.
“Everything is right on schedule,” Dunn said, adding the foundation has not missed any payments since Hammons’ death.
The school has received roughly $14 million from the trust so far.
He said the first payment was made eight years ago, and the agreement was for the school to receive payments twice a year for 25 years. The payments, which include roughly $15 million in interest, amount to roughly $1.8 million a year.
MSU does not have a claim against Hammons’ estate in probate court, but many others do.
Jonathan Eilian, a private investor who helped start Starwood Hotel and Resorts Worldwide and orchestrated a $132 million minority shareholder buyout of John Q. Hammons Hotels Inc. stock in 2005, has interest in three companies with claims against Hammons’ assets.
SFC Belmont LLC says Hammons owes it more than $146 million – the largest claim against the entrepreneur’s estate – and Eilian’s Rogers Funding LLC and Atrium Gaming LLC have filed claims of $25 million and $687,000, respectively.
In all, Eilian is associated with three ongoing lawsuits filed against Dowdy and Hammons Hotels. The suits each take issue with CEO Jacquie Dowdy’s management of Hammons Hotels since John Q. Hammons stepped down from his executive post in October 2010. They also call into question the value of Hammons’ estate.
Claims in the probate case include U.S. Bank, $69.3 million; Midwest Independent Bank, with more than $63 million via three claims; PNC Bank, $35.7 million; the city of La Vista, Neb., $15.8 million; Drury, $2 million; and the American Heart Association, $500,000.
Springfield attorney Tobin Dunn of Dunn Law Firm LLC has 22 years of probate-law experience under her belt, but she said she has never worked with the type of multimillion-dollar claims in Hammons’ case. Dunn, a distant relative of MSU’s foundation executive, is not involved in the Hammons’ probate proceedings.
With lawsuits in play, she said Hammons’ estate might not be settled anytime soon.
“A case that is contested could last up to several years,” Dunn said.
Probate Court records show Dowdy is the trustee of Hammons’ estate, based on the recommendations in his will.
As such, Dowdy is responsible for writing the biannual checks to MSU, as well as managing any other agreements in the trust.
Dunn, a probate, estate and family lawyer, said it is fairly common for people to create “pour-over” wills, in which the beneficiary of the will is the trust, which likely explains why the man who developed 210 hotels across 40 states named such a small inventory of assets.
“I am not surprised,” Dunn said in an email. “The lawyers did their job.”
While creditors have every right to make claims against a person’s assets, trusts are not subject to probate administration, according to MoBar.org.
JQH Hotels’ officials denied Springfield Business Journal’s interview request with estate trustee Dowdy.
Under state statutes, those who wish to make claims against Hammons’ estate have a limited amount of time to do so. Once a probate estate is opened, most types of claims must be filed with the probate court within six months after the date of the first published notice of letters testamentary, which occurred in Hammons’ case on Aug. 20.
Securing its $2 million from the Hammons estate was what Drury had in mind when it made its claim in February in the probate case, according to a statement released by the school. The private college named its School of Architecture after the entrepreneur based on financial commitments.
“Mr. Hammons and his estate have always honored the commitments made to Drury, and we fully expect that to continue going forward,” the statement reads. “Drury has filed a claim in relation to the pledge made by Mr. Hammons. This is merely a prudent measure to ensure that the commitments to Drury are on legal record during the ongoing settlement of the Hammons estate.”
Hammons also had made donations to Ozarks Technical Community College and Mercy Hospital Springfield. Neither group has claims in the probate case.
OTC spokesman Mark Miller said Hammons’ donation to the college’s fountain has been paid in full. Mercy spokeswoman Sonya Kullmann declined to say if the health system was owed any money for donations related to Hammons Heart Institute.[[In-content Ad]]
