The receiver responsible for the Sunwest Management announced that the first distribution of claim checks is in the mail to investors and other claimants relating to the former Oregon senior living provider’s bankruptcy estate. The distribution of $228 million represents a 40% distribution before the end of the year and/or additional interests in the new Sunwest Rollover Member LLC, a 13% partner in the joint venture with Blackstone Real Estate Advisors VI LP and Emeritus Senior Living. The receiver anticipates additional distributions in the next two to three years that may add another eighteen to twenty cents on the dollar to the forty that goes out this week. The receiver will remain in place until no substantive assets remain to be collected and liquidated, and the receivership closes
“We are thrilled to be getting this distribution out before Christmas,” said Michael Grassmueck the court appointed receiver. “Sunwest stopped paying many of its bills and most of its investor obligations in the summer of 2008, so these people have been waiting a long time for money to flow in their direction from Sunwest. And I’m even more thrilled at the amount of the distribution. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a forty-percent recovery in a securities fraud case—and this is only our first distribution.”
