# Explain This Bit Regard Michael Jackson's Assets
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 30, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449 "2009-06-30T05:12:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449/1 "2009-06-30T05:12:40Z")
> [@](#):
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> It appears that the most valuable assets will likely remain in the estate’s control.
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> The Sony/ATV stake and 100 percent of Mijac, the company that controls Michael Jackson’s own music, were held in a trust whose beneficiaries are Jackson’s children. That trust is safe from creditors, said Al Malnik, its former trustee and Jackson’s business adviser from 2002 to 2005.
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> “The assets were protected through the trust against creditors,” Malnik said Monday.
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> Jackson used those assets as collateral to secure $200 million in loans from Bank of America in 2001. He then refinanced several times. Malnik said the loan total reached $275 million by the time he quit as trustee in 2005. Fortress Investment Group LLC, which took control in 2005, sold the loans off entirely “over a year ago,” said company spokeswoman Lilly Donohue.
Full story from the [Associated Press](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXymRgocDsCEKxjV2DORLQX8UjbgD994LGN80)
My question is if the trust is protected from creditors, why would any bank allow it to be used as collateral? Is this a common thing? I guess they figured he’d live long enough to pay it back. But basically if it’s protected doesn’t it amount to a signature loan. If so, I’d be made if I had stock in BoA
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### Author:  [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449/2 "2009-06-30T09:33:13Z")
Interesting, if it is in a trust then technically it does not belong to him, and if the beneficiaries are his children (not him) then he has no claim on the assets, even as ‘expectations’.
If he were not dead, and if this is totally true, then it looks as if he would be looking at a charge of ripping of a trust, while a trustee.
However the real situation is probably more complicated, newspapers are not totally reliable.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449/3 "2009-06-30T16:07:12Z")
Trusts are very often set up so that the original value (the corpus) is indeed given to the trust as a legal entity and is protected. However, the people setting up the trust still want to benefit from the assets in the trust, such as by living off the interest, royalties, etc.
If MJ was the legal recipient for the income on the assets in the trust, then he could use it as a sort of collateral - not in the sense that the bank could seize its assets if the loan defaulted, but in the sense of showing that he had an income to make the payments on the loan.
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-bit-regard-michael-jacksons-assets/501449/4 "2009-06-30T19:20:34Z")
Thanks that makes sense