Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A.

498 B.R. 757, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141415, 2013 WL 5515777
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedSeptember 30, 2013
DocketCivil Action No. 4:11-cv-03700
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 498 B.R. 757 (Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tow v. Amegy Bank N.A., 498 B.R. 757, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141415, 2013 WL 5515777 (S.D. Tex. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION

LEE H. ROSENTHAL, District Judge.

This Memorandum and Opinion addresses motions relating to the foreclosure and [760]*760sale of Westwood Gardens. Rodney Tow, Trustee of the Royce Homes, L.P. bankruptcy estate, seeks to void that sale under the Texas and Delaware Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Acts (“TUFTA” and “DUF-TA”). Wachovia Bank transferred its interest in Westwood Gardens to Amegy Bank, N.A. and Amegy Mortgage Company (together “Amegy”), and Amegy foreclosed on the property in March 2009. Defendant Vestalia LLC purchased that property at the foreclosure sale. Defendant Amegy has moved for partial summary judgment on claims arising from its purchase of Wachovia’s security interest in Westwood Gardens and the subsequent sale of Westwood Gardens to Vestalia. Vestalia has moved to dismiss the claims arising from its purchase of Westwood Gardens.

Based on the pleadings; the motions, responses, and replies; the parties’ submissions; the oral argument, the record; and the applicable law, the court grants Vestalia’s motion to dismiss with prejudice and grants Amegy’s motion for partial summary judgment. The reasons for these rulings are explained below.

I. Background

Royce Homes L.P., a Delaware limited partnership authorized to do business in Texas in 1998, built and sold single-family homes in the Houston area until August 2008. Defendant Hammersmith Group, Inc., now Hammersmith Group, LLC, was Royce Homes’s general partner. Defendant John H. Speer was Hammersmith’s president and Royce Homes’s president and chief executive officer. Defendant Michael Manners owned a 50 % interest in Royce Homes. Defendant Park Lake Communities, L.P. is a Texas limited partnership. Hammersmith was Park Lake’s general partner, and Speer was Park Lake’s chief executive officer. Park Lake, which owed Royce Homes between $4.4 and $5 million, owned Westwood Gardens, a housing development.

Park Lake’s ownership of Westwood Gardens was encumbered by a lien held by Wachovia Bank (the “Wachovia Note”). Speer and Amegy negotiated Amegy’s acquisition of the Wachovia Note from Wa-chovia. When Park Lake defaulted on the Note, Amegy foreclosed on the property. The property was purchased at foreclosure by Vestalia LLC, another Speer entity. Tow alleges that the transfer to Vestalia was fraudulent and that Amegy colluded with Speer to breach the fiduciary duties he owed Royce Homes and Park Lake. Some of the allegations relating to those duties are addressed in a separate Memorandum and Order.

Royce Homes maintained certain equity levels so that it could borrow the money needed to operate its homebuilding business. To protect the debt-to-equity ratios, Royce Homes’s partnership agreement “prohibitfed] distributions made from [ljoans to Royce Homes; require[d] [that] distributions leave sufficient working capital reserve, including amounts required to ensure full compliance with the terms of all loan covenants and agreements of [Royce Homes]; requirefd] the General Partner to act consistently with its fiduciary responsibility for the safekeeping and use of all Partnership Property; and limitfed] the General Partner to expending the Partnership’s capital and revenues in furtherance of the business of the Partnership.” (TAC ¶ 110) (internal quotation marks omitted). The partnership agreement permitted distributions from Royce Homes’s “Available Cash.” (TAC ¶ 111).

In 2006, Speer wanted to buy out Manners’s 50 % interest in Royce Homes for about $33 million. (TAC ¶¶ 32-33). Speer planned a leveraged buy out (“LBO”). Royce Homes could not shoulder that debt and maintain the debt-to-equity ratios that [761]*761kept the business operable. (TAC ¶¶ BB-SS). If the debt-to-equity ratios fell outside “the range required by a lender, a homebuilder such as Royce Homes would be unable to borrow the funds needed to operate its business.” (TAC ¶ 36).

Speer, Amegy, and Manners allegedly “schemed” to devise a way to “take money out of Royce Homes to fund the [LBO] without having to reflect the loss of equity on the balance sheet of Royce Homes.” (TAC ¶ 37). “The final scheme was for the [LBO] notes to be in Speer’s name with the understanding that the payments on the notes would come from Royce Homes. Thus, on paper[,] the obligation under the [LBO] notes would appear to be personal to Speer and the debt would not be reflected on the balance sheet of Royce Homes.” (TAC ¶ 38).

Speer entered into two personal obligations: a $20 million personal loan from Amegy (the “Amegy Loan”) and a $13,342,405 promissory note to Manners (the “Manners Note”). Buying out Manners’s 50 % interest in Royce Homes cost “$33,342,405 plus a loan fee of $236,386 with Manners receiving $18,578,686 of the $20 million borrowed from Amegy plus a promissory note in the amount of $13,342,405.” (TAC ¶ 40). “Speer represented to Royce Homes’s lenders that distributions to make the payments on the Amegy [L]oan[ ] would be made from same year profits; would not reduce equity below $40 million; and would not cause Royce Homes to violate the lenders’ debt-to-equity covenants contained within their loan documents.” (TAC ¶ 44).

A. Speer’s First Obligation: The Am-egy Loan Principal and Interest Payments

In January 2007, Speer owed a $10,000,000 principal payment on the Ame-gy Loan. The “Royce Homes LP-Loan Account” shows that Royce Homes wired $10,000,000 to Speer’s personal Amegy bank account on January 3, 2007. (TAC ¶¶ 129, 131). This money came from “draws on the Royce Homes lines of credit.” (TAC ¶¶ 121, 127 (detailing which lines of credit were used)). This distribution allegedly breached the Royce Homes partnership agreement, Speer’s fiduciary duty, and Speer’s representations to Royce Homes’s lenders because it was: made from funds Royce Homes had borrowed; violated loan covenants, including debt-to-equity ratio requirements; was not for a partnership purpose; was inconsistent with the fiduciary responsibility for safekeeping partnership property; and was not made in furtherance of partnership business. (TAC ¶¶ 48,134-38).

Another principal payment of $2.5 million on the Amegy Loan was due in July 2007. Royce Homes was “required to borrow money in order to make this payment.” (TAC ¶ 139). “Speer recognized making the payment caused a problem for Royce Homes and sought permission from Amegy to not make the July 2007 principal payment but[] Amegy insisted the payment be made. Despite the fact that Royce Homes was continuously breaching its debt-to-equity ratios with its lenders, Speer made the $2.5 million principal payment on July 2, 2007.” (TAC ¶ 146). This “Amegy payment distribution was made from funds borrowed from Royce Homes lenders.” (TAC ¶ 156).

William D. Gathmann, Royce Homes’s former chief financial officer, anticipated that upcoming financial disclosures would reveal the breach of Royce Homes’s covenants to its lenders. (TAC ¶ 141). “On May 11, 2007, Gathmann sent Speer and James Hunter, the Royce Homes Chief Operating Officer, an email attaching a PowerPoint presentation” requesting “waivers/amendments to the loan agreements.” (TAC ¶ 139). The PowerPoint [762]*762presentation stated that for “some banks, leverage ratio covenant and spec ratio covenant are not in compliance.” (TAC ¶ 140). This presentation was not shown to Royce Homes lenders. (TAC ¶ 142). “Gathmann recreated the PowerPoint presentation in June 2007. As with the May 2007 presentation, this one was never seen by a Royce Homes lender.

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Bluebook (online)
498 B.R. 757, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141415, 2013 WL 5515777, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tow-v-amegy-bank-na-txsd-2013.