Harris Barton and Ronnie Lott Owe People A Lot of Money

It appears awesomeness is not enough to make it in the world of finance. HRJ Capital, an investment firm started by Harris Barton, Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana (EDIT:Apparently Joe Montana left the company in 2005) (HRJ get it) all formerly of the San Francisco 49ers, is about to get taken over. HRJ apparently owes Silicon Valley Bank a staggering 69 million dollars. Sixty-nine million dollars. I mean, who would've thought 3 ex athletes would have no idea what they were doing in the world of private equity and finance? Don't get mad at me, even actual financial analysts say that what they were doing was pretty dumb.

In the financial equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, HRJ apparently doomed itself by using the firm as collateral on a bridge loan as it was attempting to raise $250 million. It was able to raise only about half that amount — between $110 million and $130 million — yet it had committed the entire $250 million for investments, according to a report from Thomson Reuters.

"Yes, that's just as dumb as it sounds," wrote Dan Primack, the top private-equity analyst at Thomson Reuters, and founder and editor of the www.pehub.com Web site.

"It's very hard to kill off a PE firm," he said. "The significance here to me is that one is actually dying. This is an exceptional case."

Exceptional indeed. I wonder how some of their well regarded clients like Andre Agassi, Jerry Rice, Tim Duncan or Oscar de la Hoya feel about it? I don't care how tough Ronnie Lott or Harris Barton were in their prime, I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Oscar de la Hoya that you just lost a few million of his dollars. Ouch.

From Santa Cruz Sentinal