Aw Gee, Guys

Pay-up time for the Hunts

It was a fittingly larger-than-life denouement to one of the grandest money-losing speculations of recent history, and it provided a blunt reminder that even billionaires can get in over their heads. With their dreams of cashing in on last winter's silver boom now transformed into mushrooming debts of $980 million, Bunker, Herbert and Lamar Hunt have been struggling all spring to fend off ruin. Papers on file last week in the Dallas County Courthouse, and elsewhere around the country, showed just how desperate their plight has become, as well as the extent of their fabled wealth.

To satisfy creditors and still keep their multibillion-dollar empire intact, the brothers, heirs to the estate of Texas Oilman H.L. Hunt, have been forced to arrange for a stupefying $1.1 billion line of credit from a consortium of twelve banks headed by Morgan Guaranty and First National Bank in Dallas. In return for the money, the banks have demanded as collateral just about everything of value that the Hunts still own. The resulting listing of mortgaged properties, which runs to more than 350 pages of securities, real estate, corporate holdings, art objects and even personal goods, provides a rare and extraordinarily detailed glimpse inside one of the largest, and most carefully concealed, family fortunes anywhere.

From the Hunts' far-flung oil and gas leases round the world to Brother Lamar's Rolex watch and even Hunt family office equipment, cattle feeders and watercoolers, nothing escaped the attentive and appraising eye of the bankers. Explained one banker in the style of his trade: "When you've got someone over a barrel, you grab everything you can."

Bullionaire Bunker Hunt, for example, anted up 69,485 head of cattle from ranches in seven states and more than 700 Thoroughbred race horses, including some with appropriate names like Goofed, Extravagant and Overdrawn. Bunker also kicked in 65 Krugerrands, 60 bags of silver coins, 1,000 Austrian gold Ducats and 3,000 Austrian gold Coronas, plus some odds and ends like a renowned collection of porcelain birds and an oil painting of himself and his son.

Herbert Hunt hocked his 8,748-acre ranch, which stretches through three counties in South Texas, and a collection of Roman and Greek statues and busts, including a 5th century B.C. dancing satyr. Brother Lamar Hunt pledged money due him from his holdings in the Dallas Tornado soccer team and the Chicago Bulls basketball team. Lamar also added his art collection. A prized possession: Frederic Edwin Church's The Icebergs, which he bought last October for $2.5 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for an American painting.

Last week's court papers showed that the Hunts are very generous with each other. Bunker has loaned his son Houston Bunker $7.1 million and his daughter Elizabeth Hunt Carnes $61.9 million. Among the brothers, the financial transactions were staggering: Bunker loaned Lamar $11 million and Herbert $23 million, while Herbert loaned Bunker $13 million and Lamar $17.5 million.

The Hunts revealed in the documents the inner relations of family businesses. Each brother, for example, owns an equal share of Planet Petroleum. But Bunker has 50% of Hunt International Petroleum, which holds valuable oil leases in Canada's Beaufort Sea.

For all that, the Hunts are hardly facing anything like the poorhouse. After a congressional subcommittee hearing last week, Herbert admitted that the family and its interests still own 60 million ounces of silver and silver contracts. With that empire together and essentially as profitable as ever, the Hunts can sit back and let the banks run their businesses for them. Nonetheless, the interest charges on their loans are now reported to be a Texas-size $500,000 a day.

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