Insurance No Factor in Sale, Both Sides Say

Both Hollywood Park and United Parcel Services, Inc., have denied that insurance had anything to do with UPS’ decision not to go through with a 30-acre, $18-million land deal with the track.

Hollywood Park’s intended sale of a portion of its property went into escrow in June of 1991, but UPS said earlier this week that it would not proceed with the purchase. Because it terminated escrow, UPS had to forfeit its $500,000 deposit.

A report in The Times Thursday said that UPS had quashed the deal because it was unable to get insurance to build in the area. G. Michael Finnigan, Hollywood Park’s vice president and chief financial officer who was involved in the transaction from the beginning, said that wasn’t the case.

“No one from UPS who was involved in the transaction had any conversations at any point about insurance,” Finnigan said. “(Anybody who says) otherwise clearly didn’t know anything about the deal or insurance.

“Their (UPS) business is down nationally and the persons involved in the transaction were not sure of the timing on when they would need this site, so they broke the escrow. They did say they liked the site a lot and that it could well be of interest again in the future.”

Ken Churchill, a spokesman for UPS, also said insurance had no bearing on its decision.

“That was not the problem,” he said. “(The decision to terminate the purchase) was strictly a business decision based upon the recession. It had nothing to do with insurance.”