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<\/p>\nMonths after LuxUrban Hotels\u2019 chaotic bankruptcy left guests stranded on the streets of New York City, the company’s founder and former CEO is now also bankrupt.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Courtesy of CorpHousing Group, now LuxUrban\n <\/p>\n
\n LuxUrban Hotels founder Brian Ferdinand\n <\/p>\n
Brian Ferdinand<\/a> filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy in the Eastern District of New York on Dec. 2, claiming less than $4.5M in assets and over $98M in liabilities, according to his bankruptcy petition.<\/p>\n The majority of the liabilities stem from personal guarantees he signed on behalf of LuxUrban to secure master leases for New York City hotels the company operated. He owes $28M to MAve Hotel Investors, the landlord of Hotel 27 on Madison Avenue, $6.4M to the owner of The Herald at 71 W. 35th St., and $14.2M to the landlords of the Tuscany Hotel, according to the filing.<\/p>\n Ferdinand also owes the Internal Revenue Service $148K in unpaid taxes from 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Marc Pergament, a partner at Weinberg, Gross and Pergament LLP and Ferdinand\u2019s bankruptcy attorney, declined to comment. Ferdinand didn’t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The filing paints a picture of a now-penniless executive who put his personal fortune on the line to fuel the growth of his hotel company that his executive team once boasted<\/a> could compete with Marriott and Hilton.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that business has now collapsed, and it has taken its founder down with it.<\/p>\n In the filing, Ferdinand claims he is unemployed and taking in no salary. He lists three bank accounts with a total of $169.69 between them. He disclosed that his 2023 Porsche Cayenne was repossessed last year and that he’s receiving a $30K monthly allowance from his father.<\/p>\n His largest asset is a condominium in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, valued at $4.4M, although he has two mortgages tied to the apartment for a combined $5.7M.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also owes Wyndham Hotel Group<\/a> $19M, according to the filing, for a failed deal it struck with LuxUrban. He is on the hook for a $2.7M judgment after LuxUrban defaulted on its lease for the hotel at 123 Washington St. \u2014\u00a0another transaction he personally guaranteed.<\/p>\n Other creditors include affiliate of investors Infinity Collective, which he owes $2.7M, four advance lending firms\u00a0with\u00a0claims\u00a0totaling\u00a0$3.9M, and two reputation management firms, which he owes $35K in total.<\/p>\n Ferdinand disclosed that he was sued 18 times in the year before he filed for bankruptcy, with the vast majority of\u00a0the lawsuits\u00a0over breaches of loan or lease guarantees.<\/p>\n Ferdinand founded CorpHousing Group in 2017, leasing apartment buildings and offering them as short-term rentals. During the pandemic, he\u00a0led\u00a0the company’s pivot<\/a> to\u00a0master leasing\u00a0hotels, culminating in\u00a0a $13M initial public offering in 2022 and a new brand: LuxUrban Hotels.<\/p>\n He remained CEO until 2024, when he stepped down following\u00a0a January 2024 short seller report that highlighted<\/a>\u00a0a series of lawsuits against the company and that\u00a0raised questions about its financial reporting.<\/p>\n Ferdinand also resigned as chairman later that year, only to\u00a0cycle in and out<\/a> of chairman and interim CEO roles in the months since as newly hired executives came and went. Throughout, he remained the company’s largest shareholder.<\/p>\n Last year, LuxUrban was sued by the New York City government over a check \u2014 to pay part of a $1.2M fine for illegally operating short-term rentals as CorpHousing Group \u2014 that\u00a0bounced when the city tried to cash it<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Only four months later, after Ferdinand had again relinquished all of his leadership roles, LuxUrban filed for\u00a0Chapter 11 restructuring<\/a>\u00a0on Sept. 15.<\/p>\n \n Bisnow\/Ciara Long\n <\/p>\n \n LuxUrban Hotels operated The Tuscany hotel in Midtown Manhattan before abruptly ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy.\n <\/p>\n While\u00a0LuxUrban initially filed to restructure and stay in business, it stopped paying its workers and shuttered the hotels anyway. In the days following,\u00a0it became clear that\u00a0LuxUrban\u00a0hadn\u2019t stopped taking bookings<\/a>, leaving\u00a0guests\u00a0with\u00a0nowhere to go<\/a>\u00a0when they showed up outside shuttered hotels where they had made reservations.<\/p>\n A lender on the Herald hotel \u2014 which is\u00a0pursuing foreclosure<\/a> after its owners couldn\u2019t pay the property\u2019s mortgage in part because LuxUrban skipped on rent \u2014\u00a0said the hotel had \u201cmounting safety issues, persistent leaks, accumulating garbage, and other pressing security concerns.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Department of Justice attorneys\u00a0filed an emergency motion asking the court to appoint<\/a> an independent trustee to\u00a0take over the bankruptcy, citing \u201cgross negligence\u201d by management and safety concerns for consumers and workers.<\/p>\n LuxUrban converted its Chapter 11 bankruptcy<\/a> to a Chapter 7 liquidation just weeks later\u00a0on Oct. 21<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis seems like a kind of firestorm mess,\u201d\u00a0Andrew Gottesman<\/a>, head of Rosenberg & Estis’ restructuring and bankruptcy practice, who isn\u2019t involved in the case,\u00a0told Bisnow at the time.<\/p>\n Ferdinand\u2019s departure meant he wasn\u2019t named in LuxUrban\u2019s initial Chapter 11 or its Chapter 7.<\/p>\n But this week, he was dragged back into the company\u2019s legal proceedings when the case\u2019s court-appointed\u00a0trustee,\u00a0Kenneth Silverman, filed a motion to make Ferdinand responsible in the company\u2019s liquidation case.<\/p>\n Silverman\u2019s request, which needs to be approved by a judge, followed court testimony from LuxUrban\u2019s chief restructuring officer that \u201conly Ferdinand would be capable\u201d of producing the financial documents needed to resolve the case.<\/p>\n Ferdinand and LuxUrban’s bankruptcy cases are also taking place alongside a separate class-action lawsuit that claims LuxUrban and Ferdinand defrauded investors by claiming to have executed leases<\/a> at hotels when the deals were only pending. The lawsuit is in the\u00a0discovery phase<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Months after LuxUrban Hotels\u2019 chaotic bankruptcy left guests stranded on the streets of New York City, the company’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11129,19650,23736,11130,44368,385,9,11,10,22463],"class_list":["post-94830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-brian-ferdinand","tag-chapter-11","tag-chapter-11-bankruptcy","tag-chapter-7","tag-corphousing-group","tag-luxurban-hotels","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nyc-hotels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n