Since firing 2,700 staff via texts and emails whereas they slept final week — simply earlier than Thanksgiving – the proprietor of United Furnishings Industries, David Belford, has seemingly disappeared.
However he might be hiding out in considered one of his two houses price an estimated $24 million, The Submit can report.
Belford, 62, at the moment owns a farmhouse in Mount Gilead, Ohio, which he bought again in 1991 for $600,000, data present.
The house is a lakefront property with water views of Straits Lake.
Based on Zillow, the five-bedroom, five-bathroom, 4,000-square-foot residence is price $1,133,800 in the present day.
In the meantime, his most prized piece of actual property is an oceanfront two-bedroom, three-bathroom dwelling in Naples, Florida, price an estimated, $22,870,283, in accordance with Redfin.
Information present he bought the Sunshine State dwelling again in 2011 for $6 million.
In the course of the pandemic, Florida’s west coast property market has heated up tremendously, boosted by distant work and sunny climate.
Belford has remained silent for the reason that layoffs of his complete workforce in Mississippi, North Carolina and California. Regardless of efforts by legal professionals and lenders representing axed staff to succeed in UFI, nobody has heard from the corporate or Belford, sources informed The Submit.
“Nobody has heard from the proprietor. He’s not returning anybody’s telephone calls. It’s such a horrible scenario,” one insider with information of the scenario informed The Submit.
Philip Hearn, one of many attorneys representing lots of of laid-off workers, stated that rumors have swirled that he's at the moment in Paris.
“On the instruction of the board of administrators … we remorse to tell you that as a consequence of unexpected enterprise circumstances, the corporate has been pressured to make the tough determination to terminate the employment of all its workers, efficient instantly, on Nov. 21,” the corporate stated in a message to workers.
“Except over-the-road drivers which can be out on supply. Your layoff from the corporate is anticipated to be everlasting and all advantages can be terminated instantly with out provision of COBRA.”
It’s unclear why the two-decade-old firm dissolved its operations so all of a sudden, however over the summer time it fired its chief govt, chief monetary officer and govt vp of gross sales, in accordance with Furnishings At the moment.
The transfer additionally got here after Belford quarreled with the corporate’s board and bankers on whether or not to file for chapter. On Nov. 20, the day earlier than shedding the whole firm, the board filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety.
In the meantime, regardless of his shortcomings, court docket paperwork present that Belford has been famous for his philanthropic efforts in previous years — whereas coping with contentious authorized proceedings.
Belford and his spouse, Jenni, based a charity for sick kids and donated $10 million to determine a spinal twine damage analysis heart at Ohio State College’s Wexner Medical Middle — a Columbus, Ohio, facility named after Victoria’s Secret’s billionaire founder, Les Wexner.
In 2008, he and his spouse co-founded the Belford Household Charitable Fund, which helps kids’s organizations together with Flying Horse Farms, a camp for sick kids.
Nevertheless, Belford has additionally been named in a number of lawsuits alleging “fraudulent transfers” of cash and “brazen violations” of noncompete agreements, court docket paperwork revealed.
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