Gov. Jim Justice credited God with helping his family relieve financial pressures on The Greenbrier Hotel, and he pointed toward a rainbow as symbolism.
“So many times in life, God always shows up. He’s in our lives everywhere, and he always shows up,” Justice said today during a state news briefing. “If you just look around, you can see him at work all the time.”
In this case, the intervention had to do with refinancing millions of dollars in debt.
On Tuesday, The Greenbrier Hotel Corp., led by Justice and his family, announced it had satisfied its financial obligation to a credit collection company, averting the foreclosure sale of the historic West Virginia resort.
A public auction on the courthouse steps had been set for Oct. 25 — next Friday — unless Beltway received an amount the governor has identified as a $22 million final payment. The governor had described earlier payments of a little less than $2 million.
The Justice family, in a statement distributed Tuesday evening, said the amount due to Beltway Capital had been met.
The governor had been on a road trip to Cabell and Marshall counties, celebrating the birthday of his dog and checking in on whether the deal had been completed. As he learned over the telephone that the deal had been sealed, he told reporters in the briefing, he saw a rainbow overhead.
“Absolutely incredible day in the Justice family and my life,” the governor said.
The Greenbrier statement distributed to reporters did not specify the source of the money to satisfy Beltway Capital. An amended deed filed with the Greenbrier County clerk lists the lender as CF Green Investors LP. The State of Delaware’s incorporation site shows a formation date for CF Green Investors of this past Sept. 24, which was one month ahead of a payment deadline to avert auction of The Greenbrier. CF Green Investors was established as a limited partnership, and Delaware state officials said no listing of officers is required.
Sources have indicated the financing to satisfy the debt came through an agreement with Fortress Investment Group, an enormous equity firm. The address used on the deed of trust for CF Green is the one for Fortress’s New York office at 1345 Avenue of the Americas, 46th Floor.
Justice, responding to questions by reporters Beth Sergent of The Charleston Gazette-Mail and Briana Heaney of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, made reference to a confidentiality agreement.
“I surely can’t get into the facts of ‘Well, we did this or we did this or we got this money over here in this shoebox or this over here and everything,” Justice said. “But the net of the whole thing is it’s all paid off. It’s all taken care of. Beltway is gone.”
Heaney asked specifically if Fortress Investment Group was behind the financing that relieved the immediate pressure.
“I’m under a level of confidentiality and I don’t know that I can disclose that to you, but we have had several conversations and we’ve got a lot of stuff that’s cooking and working with Fortress and they’re good people. And so I’ve had a lot of interactions with Fortress and done a lot of work with them,” Justice responded.
Justice gained goodwill and steps toward statewide name recognition when he bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in spring of 2009. Justice, a two-term governor, is now a Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and is considered the frontrunner because of his broad name identification and West Virginia’s recent voting trends.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. wound up in a financial tangle with the credit collection company Beltway Capital over a multi-million dollar loan default. Last Thursday, a legal advertisement placed in Lewisburg’s West Virginia Daily News issued notification of a possible foreclosure sale of The Greenbrier.
The property that could have been auctioned constituted 60.5 acres, although that does not include the entire Greenbrier Hotel complex. It generally includes the hotel itself and the parking. The balance of the property like golf courses, tennis and medical facilities are owned by other Greenbrier-related entities.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. promised to make good on a necessary payment. Representatives of the hotel corporation last week characterized the legal advertisement as a procedural move — a matter of due diligence by the credit collection company timed to potentially conduct a sale the day after the money is due.
Today, Justice told reporters that he’d said all along that The Greenbrier would make good on its finances.
“You know, we run through the streets screaming ‘Oh gosh, Beltway, Beltway, Beltway and this and that and everything else.’ And we rile up a bunch of people. And I would say to the media, I have told you over and over and over what would be the final outcome. You know, I have told you that. And I have dead split the bullseye over and over and over and over,” Justice told WOWK television reporter Mark Curtis.
“I know what the outcome’s going to be. And through all that, we work and work as diligently as we possibly can. I know that God above is looking after us and our family, and he’s always going to do that. He’s going to look after all of you. I’ve known where we were going to go.”
The deed of trust in the Greenbrier Resort financial dispute was originally recorded in 2014 with JPMorgan Chase Bank as the lender. It was originally recorded securing a promissory note made by James C. Justice II, the borrower and now the governor. The note that it secured was for $142 million.
There are differences in what each party has said was owed most recently — as well as a parting of the ways.
The Greenbrier Hotel Corp has maintained that it had been working in good faith with JPMorgan under a mutual agreement since 2021 and under that agreement the debt to JPMorgan had been reduced to $9.4 million.
A few weeks before this summer’s first announced auction, JPMorgan sold loan documents including the deed of trust to a credit collection company, a McCormick 101, which is associated with Beltway Capital.
After buying the loan documents from JPMorgan and declaring default, Beltway Capital has been asking for what remains of the loan, which its lawyers calculate to be $24 million in principal and $16 million in interest.
The first announced sale was then halted August 22 after The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation said it had reached an agreement with the credit collection company behind the foreclosure sale.
The family-owned corporation announced at the time, “Beltway Capital will receive a specific amount to be paid in full by October 24, 2024, which Justice has already secured this funding. Beltway reserves its rights if the Justice family fails to perform. Upon full performance, all issues concerning The Greenbrier and Glade Springs are concluded.”
Now, the Justices have refinanced the debt with someone else.
No one but the parties directly involved knows how strict the terms are, the payment rates or the payoff amount for the new debt agreement. When asked by WCHS television reporter Bob Aaron if the new terms could represent peril in the future, Justice he is feeling secure.
“I don’t know about the next speed bump, and I don’t have something that I’m concerned about at all,” Justice said. “I think The Greenbrier is as solid as solid could ever be, and our family loves The Greenbrier — and I don’t know of another speed bump, but with all that being said, will there be? Yeah, sure there’ll be. There will be that with every single business on the planet.”