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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Bank Claims Real Estate Queen Hid Assets

WHEATON, Ill. (CN) - A bank claims a luxury real estate developer hid assets offshore to duck payments on more than $40 million in loans. West Suburban Bank sued Oliver-Hoffmann Corporation, its president Camille Oliver-Hoffman, of Naperville, and Daybreak Investments.

The bank says Oliver-Hoffman took the loans directly, or guaranteed them, and has made no payment on them for several months.

"In the last several years real estate values have dramatically declined," the bank says in its complaint in DuPage County Chancery Court. "Ms. Hoffmann's ultimate personal exposure for the money she borrowed or on the loans she guaranteed - her liability above and beyond the value of the underlying real estate mortgaged to secure the loans - greatly increased. In a clear effort to shield her personal assets from the Bank (and other creditors for whose loans she also is obligated), in late 2009 Ms. Hoffmann transferred assets worth millions to a newly created entity which was indirectly owned, through off-shore trusts, by Ms. Hoffmann or members of her family. These transfers were fraudulent ..."

Defendant Daybreak is an Alaskan LLC that operates out of DuPage County, the bank says.

"Daybreak is directly and indirectly owned by various trusts, the beneficiaries of which are Ms. Hoffman and/or members of her family. Daybreak was the recipient of assets that the Bank alleges was fraudulently transferred by Ms. Hoffmann."

In addition to transfers of real property, Hoffmann also transferred "a substantial amount of personal properly, including art work, to Daybreak," the bank says.

As a result of the massive transfers, the bank says, Oliver-Hoffmann has been left with virtually no assets to liquidate.

West Suburban seeks damages for breach of commercial guarantee and fraudulent transfer.

The bank is represented by William Barrett with Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg of Chicago.

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