Chinese exile Guo Wengui offers ‘Lady May’ yacht to creditors in bankruptcy
- The businessman owes more than US$100 million, however, and the vessel may not be worth enough to clear his debts
- The Lady May made headlines in 2020 when Trump ally Steve Bannon was arrested on board on unrelated federal charges
Exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui is offering to repay the more than US$100 million he owes creditors in part by offering up the yacht that drove him to bankruptcy, court papers show.
The businessman’s debt stems from a US$30 million loan he got from a fund in 2008, which according to the lender Guo failed to repay. Guo arranged for the yacht to leave US waters sometime after October 2020, putting it out of the reach of debt collectors.
That prompted a New York judge to hold the Chinese exile in contempt and levy a fine of US$134 million, leading Guo to file for bankruptcy in February just before that payment was due.
Now Guo is proposing to give the yacht to a trust that would at least partly repay his creditors, including the fund that has been suing him for years over unpaid debts. But the move is unlikely to fully satisfy to these debtholders, as the watercraft, known as the Lady May, was originally bought in 2015 for £28 million, which at current exchange rates is about US$36.5 million.
The Lady May made headlines in 2020 when Steve Bannon, a former Trump political strategist and associate of Guo, was arrested aboard the vessel on unrelated federal charges.