Columbia S&L; Jet Sold to Firm Affiliated With Milken : Thrifts: The Gulfstream IV jet is already up for sale again for $21.5 million.
Columbia Savings & Loan is no longer one of the thrift industry’s highfliers--in more ways than one.
The maverick Beverly Hills savings and loan, reeling from heavy losses in its risky junk bond portfolio, has quietly sold for an undisclosed price its interest in a Gulfstream IV jet, the Rolls-Royce of corporate air travel.
And who owns the jet now?
A trail of Federal Aviation Administration records and state documents, supplemented by interviews with sources knowledgeable about the transaction, point to a corporation affiliated with Michael Milken, the former Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond chief who worked closely with Columbia. Indeed, records indicate that a separate corporation affiliated with Milken already owned an interest in the plane with Columbia and bought out the thrift’s share.
The corporation, listed in documents as DWC & BV, is already trying to get rid of the plane at an asking price of $21.5 million, according to a sales listing obtained by The Times. DWC & BV’s address on a bill of sale filed with the FAA and on the sales listing matches an office address for Richard V. Sandler, Milken’s longtime personal attorney and one of his closest advisers. Although Sandler does not work exclusively for Milken, his name appears on many partnerships and companies in which Milken holds an interest.
FAA records further show that DWC & BV bought for an undisclosed price yet another Gulfstream IV a month after buying Columbia’s interest. The second plane was bought from manufacturer Gulfstream Aerospace.
No one is implying that the sale was illegal or improper, but Gulfstream IVs don’t change hands like used cars.
The Gulfstream IV, described in the sales listing as white with maroon and gray trim, symbolized Columbia’s prosperity before the collapse last year of the junk bond market. The jet is one of the world’s elite corporate planes, selling new for more than $22 million. Just 126 exist, typically owned by Fortune 500-sized companies.
The planes usually include such features as plush couches, a kitchen, telephones, meeting rooms, TVs and videocassette recorders. Columbia housed its plane in an elaborate, $1-million-plus hangar it built at Van Nuys Airport.
Columbia declined comment on the sale but did confirm that an affiliated corporation sold its interest.
A spokesman for Milken, who is facing criminal charges of securities fraud and racketeering, also declined comment. Milken’s stake in the plane is unclear, but it is believed that he owns only a small interest through the corporation.
Milken has long maintained close ties to Columbia, which until the end of last year was headed by his friend, Thomas Spiegel. Through most of the middle to late 1980s, Spiegel generated huge profits for Columbia by investing the thrift’s federally insured deposits in junk bond investments issued through Drexel, which collapsed last month amid huge losses.
Spiegel left as Columbia’s chief executive on Dec. 31, amid growing losses caused largely by a rapid deterioration in the junk bond market. Columbia has been furiously trying to restructure amid industry speculation that a further deterioration in its financial condition may cause regulators to place it under severe lending restrictions or ultimately seize it.
Earlier this week, Columbia named Edward G. Harshfield to replace Spiegel as chief executive. The move to name Harshfield, who has much more of a traditional banking background than Spiegel did, was viewed as placating regulators while Columbia tries to transform itself into a more conventional S&L.;
