Asher Edelman has been known to get tough with those who owe him money. Now Emigrant Savings Bank is turning the tables. Reuters reports that the dealer who has recently been actively searching for artwork to guarantee through his Art Assure LLC venture is in a squabble with Emigrant over the repayment of a loan:
According to papers filed Tuesday with the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Emigrant had tolerated Edelman’s “long history of late payments, missed payments, other defaults and collateral sales” in a relationship dating to 2006, before finally issuing a default notice on July 1, 2009,
The bank agreed to give Edelman more time to make good on his obligations, but he failed to do so, the papers allege. Hope Tate, a senior banker for Emigrant Bank Fine Art Finance LLC, said in an affidavit that Edelman obtained two loans and a credit line from Emigrant. She said the funds included a $2 million loan for his purchase of Giacometti’s “Torse de Femme.”
Edelman says this is all news to him and he’ll satisfy the loan expeditiously:
“Since the year end, the bank and I have been negotiating an extension of a credit that I’ve had for about the last three or four years,” Edelman said in the interview. “We had negotiations up until Monday and it was only yesterday that I learned from them that they wanted full payment of the loan. They will have full payment of the loan very shortly.”
