From: "jeffrey E." <jeevacation@grnail.com>
To: Heather Gray
Subject: Re: yesterday's meeting with Leon
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 00:30:04 +0000
thanks you are on the right track
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Heather Gray > wrote:
Dear Jeffrey,
I wanted to update you on my meeting with Leon and Rich Joslin yesterday afternoon. We had planned to
identify which works of art should be held in the new art entity, but it turned into a much broader discussion
about the overall plan for the art.
• Art/Black Family Museum
Prompted by your question to Leon about whether there are particular works of art that the children
may want to keep after his death, he articulated a desire for maximum flexibility, a theme which you have been
stressing all along. He noted that the children are in a different place in their lives today than they will be in
10 or 15 years, so it would be very difficult for them to say with any certainty today which works they would
want to keep forever.
He also wants to have the option to move art out of the new entity in the future and use it to fund a
"Black Family Museum," should his non-art assets grow substantially in the coming years. His reasoning is
that, under this scenario, the children would receive substantial non-art assets at his death so the art would not
have to be sold and instead could be used to create a family legacy.
The discussions that I have been involved in with respect to the new art entity do not contemplate this
option, so we will need to do some broader thinking with Alan about how to give Leon this flexibility without
running afoul of 2036. For example, the draft agreement only allows a member to withdraw from the
company or reduce his capital account with the consent of the Class B Managing Members (i.e., the trustees of
the children's trusts). This makes perfect sense from an estate tax/discount standpoint, but does not necessarily
accomplish what Leon wants.
An interesting side note to come out of our discussion of the fine art is that Leon thinks of the Chinese
bronzes as a discrete collection, entirely separate and apart from the fine art, for which he intends to do
different planning and has a different strategy which appears likely to involve a museum. The bronzes
certainly seem ready-made either for a gift/bequest to an existing museum (in a dedicated Black Family room
or wing, for example) or as a strong base for a Black Family Museum.
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• Note Payable to Children's Trusts
Leon also questioned whether he should be paying off all/most of the note to the children's trusts, or if
it would be more beneficial to keep the note in place, make annual interest payments and, if necessary from a
tax/trusts and estates perspective, make annual but relatively small principal payments. I believe Rich Joslin is
going to run some numbers on the difference between paying off the note during Leon's life and keeping it in
place until his death.
A lot of our planning around the new art entity has been geared toward ensuring that the use of LLC
interests to repay the loan will be respected as a transfer of intangibles. Keeping with the theme of maximum
flexibility, though, I think our planning continues to be relevant and puts us in a good position if Leon does
decide to pay off the loan with LLC interests, while not hurting us if he instead keeps the loan in place until his
death.
We will also need to keep in mind going forward that if Leon does decide to pay off a large portion of
the loan with his LLC interests, he will be reducing his ownership of the LLC so that he would be entitled to
receive less art out of the LLC in the event it was dissolved or he withdrew as a member (which may be
options if he wants to fund a Black Family Museum with art owned by the LLC).
• Logistics
Leon wants us to come back to him with our thoughts on the above points and on the dollar value of art
that should be held by the new art entity. He said his assumption was that it should have somewhere between
$1 billion - $1.5 billion of art to make sure there was enough collateral for the new entity to continue to act as
guarantor on the Bank of America loan. He was concerned about the relative values of what the children's
trusts will be contributing to the new entity versus what he will be contributing to the new entity, and wanted
to make sure that he did not end up with no control over the art in the entity. I told him that the draft
agreement allows him, in his capacity as Class A Managing Member, to make all decisions with regard to
acquisitions and sale of art, including what to buy or sell, at what price, at what time, and how the portfolio
should be balanced among collecting categories — e.g., 75% Impressionist art and 25% Old Masters versus
50% Impressionist, 25% Old Masters, 24% Contemporary art.
My overriding sense coming out of yesterday's meeting is that it is impossible for Leon to make concrete
decisions today about what he will ultimately want to see happen to his art collection because so much is
contingent on future events, so we need to make sure that our planning contemplates all of the options he has
raised and is as flexible as possible.
I know that you and Leon have frequent discussions about these matters, but it was very helpful for me to hear
his thoughts, so I wanted to share with you where I think we may need to make some adjustments in our
planning. Happy to discuss any of this with you further if you would like.
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Have a nice weekend!
Heather
Heather Gray
Elysium Management LLC
445 Park Avenue
Suite 1401
New York, New York 10022
Direct Dial: MEM
Fax:
Email:
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