Jonathan Eilian’s JD Holdings LLC has reached a deal with the estate of a late Missouri hotelier that paves the way for the real-estate investor to acquire a hotel portfolio valued at about $1 billion that had been tied up in legal disputes for nearly a decade, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The settlement, filed on Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Kansas City, Kans., calls for Eilian’s investment company to acquire 35 hotels controlled by John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts while paying all allowed creditors claims in full and keeping the majority of the hotels’ 4,000 employees on the job. The deal, which forms the basis of a chapter 11 exit plan, also calls for the creation of a charitable trust, funded with $20 million, to honor the legacy of John Q. Hammons, the late hotelier, who developed more than 100 hotels during his lifetime.
