Now here is what really happened. It's 2003 and Steve has gone through ($25M) of Sankey Johnson's money and he raises the white flag and allows Saleen to go into Bankruptcy. 35 lawsuits had piled up against Saleen for everything from Non Payment of Vendor invoices, to Lemon Law claims to breach of contract on the S7 frame. Saleen was burning through $900K per month .
Hancock Park Associates picked Saleen up in a bankruptcy proceeding . HPA agreed with the bankruptcy judge to take over Saleen's debt and sustain employment in exchange for 100% of Saleen's shares. HPA then drafted a management agreement with Steve Saleen that would earn him back 10% of the shares . This was agreed to by all parties. HPA did not even know how much debt there was or about all the lawsuits that had been filed and continued to be filed. The total qty of lawsuits to resolve eventually rose to 60. It cost HPA about $10M dollars and about 18 months to dig Saleen out of the debt and to resolve the lawsuits in out of court settlements. HPA ended up putting millions more into Saleen. It was with HPA's backing that Ford Motors selected Saleen to build the Ford GT.
The company turned around and had it's only two good years in 2005 and 2006 when both the Ford GT contract and the new 2005 Mustang we're going strong. This all blew up beginning in 2006-2007 when Steve decided to use company funds to build race cars for the European Formula One teams and he abandoned his CEO responsibilities. The Ford GT contract ended and the 2006 Mustang deliveries were late to the dealerships the Saleen Focus was pulled for not being certified and Saleen was fined over $500K. The whole company started to unravel. Steve was terminated by the BOD's for misappropriation of funds and dereliction of duties. He took Bill Talley with him. That is what really happened.
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