Trader's bid to buy Neverland

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Some more gossip from the Brit Press: Trader's bid to buy Neverland AN entrepreneur, who started out selling cut-price clothes on Lancashire's markets, is bidding to buy the hottest property on the world market. Simon Yates, founder of the QS Discount chain, is to head a consortium of North West investors aiming to buy Neverland, the Californian home of Michael Jackson. The businessman, whose first job was working on the markets in Chorley and Preston, spent an hour last night talking to Jacko’s close friend, Uri Geller, to kick-start the bid. He is due to fly to the Middle East next week hoping to discuss the deal. Mr Yates insists the bid is not a publicity stunt and said he was “deadly serious” about heading the group aiming to buy the $100m of real estate. However, Jackson’s official spokesman Raymone Bain exclusively told the Evening Post: “Neverland is not for sale. I don‘t know what authority they have to be making a bid for something not for sale.” Ms Bain also dismissed rumours the pop star was planning to make a new home for himself in London, branding suggestions he had been looking at houses or scouting schools for his children as “erroneous”. But Mr Yates said: “I am expecting the sale to go through for a significant amount of money. It will be a highly sought-after property, but the extent of my bid will be for the attention of Mr Jackson’s advisors only. “I know he is in Bahrain at the moment and if I could meet up with him while I am out in the Middle East that would be great, especially if it gives me an advantage in clinching the deal. “We are looking to expand the chain of stores over the next five years. This is further afield than we had planned, but it is not every day a property of this profile comes on the market.” The entrepreneur, who has already sounded out several Manchester money men about the deal, said if the bid is successful, he plans to rename the property the QS Neverland Discount Outlet. He said he would keep many of the fairground attractions and combine them with a ‘world-leading retail unit’ to create a family shopping destination based on the model QS has established in the North West. Yesterday, California state barred workers from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch and fined the singer $69,000 (£40,000) because their compensation insurance policy lapsed. Regulators found that coverage for 69 employees at the ranch in Santa Barbara County lapsed on January 10. Jackson and his immediate family may still live at Neverland and he could keep the ranch running by hiring an outside company whose employees are covered by workers’ compensation. The ranch operators have five days to appeal against the order and fine. 15 March 2006

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http://www.lep.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?Sec...ticleID=1385633 Macaulay Culkin: "Michael Jackson Is Out Of Touch" Macaulay Culkin believes that most of Michael Jackson’s problems stem from his inability to cope with reality. Culkin thinks that his old friend is totally out of touch and withdraws into his own insular world when bad things do happen to him. According to ContactMusic, Culkin said: "He goes inward and builds walls around himself and he buys a piece of land far, far away from everybody. "You can't assess fault anywhere - it's a reaction to the outside world." However, whatever his faults, Culkin does not believe that Jackson is a child molester. He said: "I don't believe the allegations were true. "Those people were just dangerous, dangerous people and the one thing that I felt was that he shouldn't have let those people in his life to begin with. "After a while you learn to sniff those people out, but because he's isolated himself so much from society he couldn't. "I can't blame him for that, but at the same time it's regrettable that that's happened to him." Well, at least now he is having some fun with the royals in Bahrain!