Michael Kassan Files: PPP Loan, $3.3M IRS Lien and 'Fired Up'
Inside the controversial world of a superconnecter, whose financial 'idiosyncrasies' have defined decades
Some, if embroiled in nasty litigation with one of Hollywood’s biggest agencies, would keep their head down and lay low. But Michael Kassan, 73, has never backed down from a fight (and yes, there have been many). On Wednesday, in Beverly Hills, the famous connector was spotted in his convertible Ferrari, top down. As a witness put it, “He was screaming into his cell phone.”
Kassan’s primal scream no doubt is getting louder, as his showdown with UTA, and its CEO Jeremy Zimmer, has the worlds of entertainment, advertising and media passing the popcorn watching the sort of bare-knuckled slugfest between titans that rarely breaks out into the open. Indeed, his friend of 20 years, Jon Miller, CEO of Integrated Media, tells The Ankler, “Michael seems determined to be in the game — continue to be in the game — and seems somewhat energized. I would say to the extent that I said anything, as a friend, it was, ‘Take a moment.’ I think he's just fired up.”
On March 12, Kassan initiated an arbitration action against UTA alleging that the agency had acted in bad faith since acquiring MediaLink in 2021 for $125 million. The suit claims UTA had reneged on various promises including what Kassan’s role would be at UTA and — this is the crux of it— the conditions surrounding his expenses budget. Kassan claims he resigned on March 6 and is seeking damages worth no less than $25 million plus attorney’s fees. He and his attorney, Sanford Michelman, argue that Kassan’s resignation frees him from any non-compete agreement.
UTA then filed its own suit later that day alleging that Kassan had been using UTA as a “personal slush fund.” Among the allegations: Kassan misused corporate money to pay for personal private jet travel; his driver’s apartment; personal credit-card debt to the tune of $500,000; and designer clothes bought by his wife, Ronnie, on a UTA company card. In total, UTA alleges that Kassan siphoned off a total of $2.5 million from the Beverly Hills agency for his own personal gain.
Still the story of Michael Kassan contains so much more.
In the latest jaw-dropper, a March 21 filing by UTA reveals that Kassan, despite amassing a fortune of untold millions through his decades-long career, applied for and was granted a $43,100 PPP loan on April 9, 2020, during the pandemic, under the title of his personal S Corp, Michael E. Kassan Inc. It seems hard to imagine Kassan was financially distressed by the pandemic: He had received $69 million in cash when he sold MediaLink in February 2017 to publicly-traded company Ascential, which owns Cannes Lions and other live-event properties, with additional earn-outs of $42 million and $62 million, also in cash. (In 2021, UTA acquired MediaLink from Ascential).
According to ProPublica’s database of PPP loan activities, Kassan’s PPP loan was forgiven as of August 19, 2021.
But those numbers, in information gathered by The Ankler through public records, are but a speck in a long history of Kassan’s financial dramas and legal entanglements.
Earlier this month, on March 4 in both Westchester County, N.Y. and Los Angeles County, court records obtained by The Ankler indicate a federal tax lien was placed on Kassan’s property for $3.3 million by the Internal Revenue Service. (According to public records, Kassan and his wife, Ronnie, own three homes: in Beverly Hills, Palm Springs and New York City.)
Public records also indicate that the $3.3 million lien isn't his first interaction with the tax man. In 2003, he received a tax lien of $240,359 but won a release on the same day. (Kassan may have paid the taxes, but releases can also be issued if the IRS’ time to collect had expired.) In 2010, the records reveal four state and federal lien releases in 2010 and 2011 totaling $1.25 million. (To be clear, liens are not necessarily indicative of solvency.)
In addition, Kassan has been subject to three civil judgments. In 1997, in Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems vs. Michael E. Kassan et al, the sum was $51,500 against him and an associate. That same year, in United Merchants Association vs. Michael E. Kassan et al, UMA won a $43,609 judgment against Kassan. In 1995, American Express Travel Related Services Co. vs. Michael E. Kassan et al resulted in a $158,340 judgment against him and Ronnie.
“If [UTA’s Jeremy] Zimmer was a good CEO, he would have said, 'You know what? I get that Michael is mercurial, that he has these idiosyncrasies. He may not conform to our generally accepted accounting principles regarding the [expenses fund], as I understand from the press in his contract, that can [be used] for discretionary purposes,” Lou Paskalis, CEO of AJL Advisory, who has known Kassan for 20 years, tells The Ankler. “When one of Michael's clients daughter's gets married, they get a very nice gift from Michael that is probably purchased by Ronnie, right? That's just how he rolls.”
Still, Kassan’s “idiosyncrasies” have come with a plethora of litigation. The Ankler has learned of nearly 50 cases of civil litigation dating back to 1990; of those Kassan or his wife are the named defendants in 28 of them. The cases range from contract disputes to debt collection, according to searches conducted on a variety of publicly available databases. One from 2008 involves non-payment of an $80,000 promissory note to a Los Angeles widow after she alleged Kassan had failed to pay back the full value of the note including interest that he had signed with her late husband. The case was settled (see PDF below).