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EXCLUSIVE: Failure may be an orphan in Hollywood, but success has many fathers. I’ve learned that Summit Entertainment has sent a letter threatening legal action if this NYC-based businessman continues to “misrepresent that he’s involved in the ownership, management, decision-making, and operations” of Summit. Last time the studio warned him, he was claiming involvement with Summit’s New Moon and Breaking Dawn movies in the Twilight saga. Read the letter and the emails:
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Why wait, just sue him.
maybe becuz he’s fu*kin rich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Amanat
Although I passed on the chance a while back, I do know several people have done “business” with this man. From what they tell me here’ his MO: Take you to a glitzy place like 4-star hotel bar to impress you and talk business. Tell you all the things he’s done. All the money he has. Be suave, cool, polished, eductaed, erudite. Drop a few names along the way. But in the end he gets OTHER people to invest in whatever you’re doing–but then runs around telling people he is the investor. It is all a con. Never does anything the normal way…no lawyers (why paw lawyers they are parasites!) no hard contracts (don’t yuo trust me?) no validation of funds (“family money”) no references (“we done this before”) but never produces anyone, no respect for the law (“taxes shmaxes, take a prom note with no taxes taken out and we’ll get you later on them’). GAAP? what’s that? etc etc.
I’m not surpised one bit that this man should have been outed like this. He’s been saying he’s part of Twilight for years. Could write a a feature story on this character.
Oh, and I bet he write that Wiki piece himself. This guy thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. Not by long shot.
Disgusting! This guy needs to get a life!
Someone sent me this link on Facebook. I had no idea this drama was going on. Omar had introduced me to the deal 4 years ago when Summit was struggling to raise money and couldn’t until Omar stepped in. I almost invested in Summit (wish I had arghh!!) Sheez, everyone who knows Omar knows he is one of the nicest guy around with only the best of intentions. Humble to a fault. Not some hollywood jackass braggart. Most people don’t even know what this guy has done because he doesn’t walk around bragging. He literally changed the way the world buys and sells stocks–there is a Harvard case study on him. He was voted one of “Wall Street’s Top Ten Most Influential Technologists,” has made billions of dollars for his partners and shareholders over the years and sits on the Board of Human Rights Watch with Barry Meyer (CEO of Warner Brothers), Malaria No More alongside Peter Chernin (fmr President of News Corp) and numerous other A Listers. This interview by Oprah Winfrey’s show http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Global-Philanthropist-Omar-Amanat says it all. He survived the 9/11 attacks where his business was destroyed, and then decided to devoted his life to charity and socially responsible films. These guys are creeps for attacking him like this and letting him be called an Imposter. I am sure this won’t be the end of this story.
Yeah. And Bernie Madoff was as respected as they come…for a while. Con men AlWAYS have great publicity until the screw up and get found out.
Mike: Hi, I’m Mike Myer–
Kanye: Summit doesn’t care about Sunflower Children.
Umm, what the f$%ck?? Don’t these knucklehead employees have anything better to do with their time than write letters to piss off their own investors? If an investor wants to throw a premiere party FOR CHARITY that’s a GOOD THING. Do Twilight fans know about this?? Are these guys that creepy that they would throw him under a bus for that and leak the letter publically? Probably alot of internal problems inside this company that look like they are about to go public. Its amateur hour at Summit.
Where there is smoke there is fire. Based on what I have heard, I would certainly evacuate the building.
wait… so was he actually a former board member though?
I know, it doesn’t say he wasn’t on the threat letter.
Yep – I was introduced to him as an officer and major financial backer of Summit. Took a minute on Google to realize that not all the dots connect. Typical D-bag trying to impress people by pretending to be connected to something bright and shiny.
Yes he tried to purport the same thing to myself, a long time friend of his, and almost send a producer friend BK and ruined his life. i have spent an entire year trying to clean up after his mess and it still isn’t over. TRUST NO ONE!!!!
But isn’t this the guy who has actually financed other companies in the past? I’ve seen him on panels and stuff.
Other then the former board member line which could just be saving face like lying on your resume. He makes it clear he is not associated with Summit. And it sounds like the charity jumped the gun on an auction item that he never offered in the first place.
They showed a movie big woop.
This seems a little unfair. I’ve met the guy. Done business with the guy and he has delivered on every single thing he said he would. He is a shareholder in Summit, just not in his name you bozos! Who puts anything in their own name? He has plenty of clout. I think this is just an a studio flexing a muscle to take credit for stuff they couldn’t otherwise finance without guys like Omar Amanat.
Is that you Omar?
All you need to know about this guy is the following:
“Mr. Omar S. Amanat most recently was the Founder, CEO and majority shareholder of Tradescape Corp, a next generation brokerage and technology firm for professional investors, which he founded in 1997 and sold to E*Trade Financial in 2002 becoming one of E*Trade’s largest shareholders. Prior to forming Tradescape, Mr. Amanat co-founded CyberBlock, the predecessor of CyberTrader, Inc., which was acquired by Charles Schwab in February 2000. Mr. Amanat is the recipient of the prestigious Albert P. Einstein Technology award for outstanding corporate citizenship and sits on the Board of Trustees for the Harlem Youth Development Foundation. He has been profiled in various media venues including Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and is a frequent public speaker. Mr. Amanat attended the University of Pennsylvania and the top-ranked Wharton School of Business and he currently sits on the Board of Advisors for Wharton’s Entrepreneurial Council.
Recently, he has been at the center of major controversy as E*Trade filed a suit against his holding company.
E*Trade Financial Corp. brought a lawsuit alleging that it was defrauded when it purchased online trading company Tradescape.com for about $280 million in stock in 2002. The lawsuit says the principals of now-defunct MarketXT Holdings Corp. “concealed declining trading volume and revenues for Tradescape and artificially pumped up its balance sheet with false assets. Manhattan-based E*Trade is seeking damages of at least $20 million and punitive damages of at least $100 million.
His personal creditors filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against him in 2004 and recently, in June 2005 MarketXT also filed for bankruptcy. He, along with his various entities, are the subject of lawsuits from creditors as well as employees who claim to have been defrauded. The controversy also includes other members of the Amanat family who are alleged to have ran Tradescape like a family piggy bank. Omar Amanat’s father, Amanat Sharif has been the subject of various lawsuits alleging that he traded Tradescape client accounts without the permission of the clients and suffered losses. Irfan Amanat, Omar Amanat’s brother and a former executive at Tradescape recently settled with the SEC over allegations of fraud while he was with the firm that amounted to extracting rebates from a NASDAQ program improperly and with intent. This settlement resulted in the revocation of MarketXT’s ability to transact in the securities industry, effectively shutting down the firm.”
They guy is a total fraud and should be in jail!
This is the same false information that someone tried to post on Omar Amanat’s wikipedia site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Amanat that the Wikimedia/Wikipedia Foundation ruled was false, slanderous and defamatory and had no substance or truth and editors removed it from the site. It is clear from the public record http://www.shareholder.com/common/edgar/1015780/1012870-02-3391/02-00.pdf that he sold his company to E*Trade for $280 million plus a $180 million earnout and became one of its largest shareholders and then when they refused to pay him his earnout he sued E*Trade for $1.5 Billion. Afterwards, they later counter sued for $20 million. The claim was settled with E*Trade paying Amanat an undisclosed amount. This guy was honored as one of Wall Street’s “Top Ten Most Influential Technologists” and was on the cover of Fortune Magazine when he was 28 years old.
“Fortune Magazine: Omar Amanat” – Can’t Keep A Good Day Trader Down Online brokers like Charles Schwab, E*Trade, and Ameritrade may be suffering, but day traders are still partying like it’s 1999. – February 19, 2001 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/02/19/296866/index.htm
Most importantly, his response to this letter from his employees just went public here: http://industryhollywood.blogspot.com/2010/11/summit-shareholder-responds-to-execs.html
The comments to this post are hilarious. I love the ones that are obviously from Omar or his friends. So subtle!
The Wikipedia is little more than a bunch of name-dropping with big headline dollar amounts where the deals didn’t work out to enrich Omar Amanat.
Note that his residence listed in the posted correspondence was surrendered in a short-sale rushed to avoid being foreclosed on by the condo or jumbo mortgage provider for non-payment. The front desk staff at the building know all about it.
Does he even pay his children’s tuition at an elite private school in Manhattan. According to some affiliate with the school, the school costs are covered by the school’s own charity fund as he is unable or unwilling to pay for their tuition himself. Not the signs of someone who is independently wealthy.
Looks like a case of Senior In-house council of a newly successful company protecting rights of Copyright Holder of a long term profitable franchise VS rich philanthropist who obviously had some part in the success of Summit who probably doesnt have anything to do with day-to-day management because he is too busy doing independent deals
Wow that was a long sentence, but it says it all doesn’t it?
Sunflower Children does good work and has a ton of credibility with the Jet Set. I dont think the Maybach Foundation does business with jokers…
Meh. Who cares? This is Twilight we’re talking about, not something of substance or quality.
WoW! So this is how Summit treats its investors!
Without outside money Legendary, Reliance, etc the studios would grind to a halt. There is FAR more OUTSIDE money floating around studio coffers than people realize…and the terms are just laughable… And yet despite this (or because) financing entities continue to be treated like shit.
Summit you suck for this…show a little gratitude..so what an investor fibbed a little, I’m sure you don’t want your books open to auditors either.
you are a fool. he was barely an investor with his meager capital contribution to Summit. Trust me the studio would have found the equity elsewhere. he is a fraud who tries to rob from his own friends. what a tremendous guy!!!
This guy and David Kirkpatrick should get together and do nothing.
I, too, have done business with Omar.
In my dealings with him, he always made it clear he had no management control at Summit, and no input on daily operations. But he did state that he was a majority shareholder of the company (via a separate holding company), and had a contractual option to co-finance films with them. He also said he was instrumental in putting together the financing that transformed Summit from being a reasonably successful foreign sales company into a major independent studio (in 2007, far as I know.)
He’s also financed numerous movies with other entities (notably Groundswell and Participant – just check IMDB.)
So the guy’s not just a poser. That said, he must’ve had some kind of falling out with Summit to have garnered this kind of unwelcome publicity and legal threat…
Interesting…
Forget Aliens VS Predator
this is way better: Wall Street Shareholders VS Hollywood Exec
is there a scriptwriter working on this? nahhh probably would be just another Summit dudd.
Let’s face it, they got really lucky with the Twilight Series, have they made money on anything else? I can understand why the Shareholders are keen to cash the eff out and the Summit execs (aka hired help) with their glorified egos hopelessly throwing money at anything that will stick, bleeding losses profusely while giving themselves bonuses. From what I read, this guy Omar conquests WallStreet pushed his wealth to Hollywood. Dont get me wrong, Summit is a great distributor but a lousy Film Studio.
PS.SPOILER ALERT
Here is the ending to this Hollywood Thriller: Shareholders sell their shares to a Hedge Fund or Real Studio that fires or demotes the execs (they are probably on contract) for doing a sucky job finding another cash cow franchise. Summit execs should take heed and stick to distributing films, instead of making em…
I helped educate Omar on entertainment investments. After taking him to meet people in distribution. Omar gives hundreds of millions or a billion dollars to Hollywood but totally forgot the minority producer who schooled him on the biz. Omar should be ashamed of himself, as he wants to be associated with Hollywood, but not with people of color.
What are you talking about?! Omar is of indian descent! He knows what its like to be a minority. I think you need to brush that chip off your shoulder..