In Deep Water

Rumors have been circulating for nearly a year that Millionaire Jerry Wolman's financial empire is on the verge of crumbling. Last week in Philadelphia. 40-year-old Wolman, onetime boy wonder of the construction industry and still the owner of 52% of the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles, admitted that he is indeed in big trouble. Stung by the morning Inquirer's speculating on his finances, Wolman called a press conference at the unusual hour of 8:30 a.m., presumably to give the more friendly afternoon Bulletin his side of the story. He announced that he lost $15.5 million recently, that bankruptcy "could come at any minute," and that he needs about $7,000,000 in cash right now in order to stay solvent. He blamed his woes on a combination of "tight money" and his own "bad planning."

Wolman's plight was brought into the open by a lawsuit for the relatively piddling amount of $174,000, the balance of a $600,000 bill the American Seating Co. claims he owes it. The corporation had put 15,000 seats in Philadelphia's Spectrum, a Wolman-constructed, $12.5 million sports arena. If Wolman's 300 other creditors follow American Seating's example, the chain-smoking entrepreneur, who values his assets at $92 million and his liabilities at more than $85 million, could be wiped out. Says he: "I can't tell how close to bankruptcy I am. It's up to the creditors. If the creditors don't take stupid action, like American Seating, I'm convinced I can bring them all out whole."

Destination Unknown. Wolman had his first brush with creditors in 1949 at age 22, when he and his brother opened a grocery store and could not pay $5,000 in bills. He issued promissory notes, then piled into a 1938 Chevrolet and drove off with his wife--destination unknown. Only a chance pickup of a Washington, D.C.-bound hitchhiker led them to that city, where he took a $75-a-week job in a paint store. His wife went to work for an insurance com pany. From their combined incomes, Wolman paid off the creditors, and in 1952 he decided to start his own paint-contracting business. This, in turn, led him into real estate--and more debt.

Inexperienced in the ways of realty, he built houses in Virginia, tried to sell them when the market was glutted, and went $100,000 in the hole. But he managed to convince subcontractors that they would get their money, then borrowed $700,000 to build an apartment house in Arlington, Va. This time he hit pay dirt, and in nine months realized a $200,000 profit. As the Government grew and the housing demand picked up, Wolman's fortunes soared. Just 16 years after arriving in Washington, he was worth $35 million, on paper. His real estate holdings stretched from Philadelphia to Chicago, where the John Hancock Life Insurance Co. helped finance a Wolman scheme for a 100-story office-residential building.

Short of Sources. Then, last December, Wolman began running short of money sources; he sold John Hancock his interest in the Chicago skyscraper for $5,500,000, getting only half his investment back. Now his other holdings are also threatened--including millions in real estate, Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium and the Yellow Cab companies of Philadelphia and Camden, N.J. In addition, he has overdrawn his bank accounts by $85,000, is $226,000 behind in paying his insurance premiums and owes $182,000 in back taxes.

Since buying the Eagles four years ago, Wolman has become a sports buff, and though he owes $7,000,000 on his holding, he claims he would not sell the club for $150 million. Moreover, even while facing financial disaster, he talks of completing one last big real estate project--a $100 million "city within a city" in Camden, N.J.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.