Dallas Lawyers Battle Banker Andy Beal & Plano Vulture Fund

© 2017 The Texas Lawbook.By Mark Curriden (March 10) – Owl’s Head was planned to be a plush Central Florida inland residential resort about 20 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico with hundreds of upper-income homes and mini-mansions set on 1,600 acres. Then the Great Recession hit. Only two  houses were actually built. Public interest in the project never materialized. The developers defaulted on two loans for a combined $36 million. The banks holding the debts failed. Two financial institutions – BB&T of North Carolina and Plano-based LNV Corp, a subsidiary of Beal Bank – saw an opportunity for a financial windfall and swooped in to acquire the bad loans. BB&T paid the reduced book value, while LNV bought the distressed debt for nickels on the dollar. But now, BB&T and LNV – each represented by Dallas lawyers – are mired in fierce, five-year-long breach-of-contract litigation against each other in federal court over $7.4 million. LNV, a vulture fund that lists North Texas banker Andy Beal as its only director, claims that BB&T improperly settled a lawsuit with the original developers of Owl’s Head for far too little money. Lawyers for BB&T argue that the settlement was legally justified and…