Annie Leibovitz Loan Deal to Manage Debt

It wasn’t that long ago, that well known portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz was faced with losing the legal rights to some of pop culture’s most enduring images. This was because she mismanaged her fortune really badly, and got herself into debt.

But according to a recent report at Associated Press, Leibovitz has now reached a long-term agreement with a private investment firm, which will help her manage her debt and market her vast portfolio, which contains around 100,000 images, and 1 million negatives.

Under the new deal that she has signed with Colony Capital LLC of Santa Monica, 60-year old Leibovitz will retain total control of her multimillion-dollar portfolio. Colony will then become the photographer’s sole creditor under the agreement.

They will then help market Leibovitz’s archive, which includes provocative images such as a nude John Lennon cuddling up to a clothed Yoko Ono only hours before his death, as well as a nude image of actress Demi Moore, who was very pregnant at the time.

Leibovitz was involved in a financial dispute with Manhattan firm Art Capital Group last year, when she obtained an extension to repay a $24 million loan to them. It was this dispute that had threatened her rights to those images plus others.

Although the specific details of the new loan weren’t disclosed, we do know that it pays off the entire Art Capital Group loan. The Colony loan is said to also contain more than $20 million of real estate collateral – Annie’s 3 Manhattan town houses.

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