Self-Help Guru Who Authored 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' Hit with $24M Judgment, But Still Worth a Bundle
A self-help guru who became well known as the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and went on to make a mint from his numerous books and speaking engagements, is about $24 million lighter in the wallet after a jury verdict earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan against one of Robert Kiyosaki’s companies.
That resulted in a bankruptcy filing by his Rich Global LLC in Wyoming in August, according to the New York Post.
But not to worry: The judgment won’t be paid out of personal assets for Kiyosaki and his wife, says Mike Sullivan, who serves as CEO of another Kiyosaki company, Rich Dad Co. And Kiyosaki, whose net worth has been estimated at $80 million, is still bringing in a bundle from other ventures, the Post recounts.
At issue in the $23,687,957.21 judgment against Rich Global was a deal years ago with the Learning Annex and Bill Zanker, its founder and chairman. Zanker explained to the Post that Kiyosaki agreed to give him a percentage for promoting his speaking engagements, but reneged.
“I took Kiyosaki’s brand and made it bigger,” Zanker told the newspaper, adding: “The Learning Annex is the greatest promoter. We put his ‘Rich Dad’ brand on a stage. We truly prepared him for great fame and riches. But when it was time for him to pay up, he said ‘no.’ ”
Initially thrilled, he said, to get even more from the jury than he asked for, Zanker is understandably not happy to hear that the company subject to his judgment is in bankruptcy, Sullivan notes.
But “the dealings we had with Learning Annex were with a company that hasn’t been in business for a number of years, … the money doesn’t exist in that company, and we can’t bring money out of the group,” continued Sullivan, who called the amount of the judgment “outlandish.”
The Daily Mail also has a story.
