Gupta Sued Over $6.8m Unpaid Banking Bill

Investment advisory firm Blackstone Group is suing Infogroup founder Vin Gupta, over an unpaid $6.8m bill connected with the firm's takeover last year.

Infogroup - which owns Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) - was sold to CCMP Capital Advisors last July for around $468m. Founder and former Chairman & CEO Gupta made around $101.6m from the deal.

Gupta was sacked as Infogroup Chairman in 2008, following an investigation which found him guilty of misspending millions of company dollars for private use of a jet plane, an 80-foot yacht, apartments in Hawaii and California, a University of Nebraska stadium box and personal flights for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Blackstone has filed its complaint in the New York State Supreme Court 10 months after Gupta agreed to pay $7.43m to settle the misuse of funds lawsuit.

In its complaint, Blackstone says that in 2007, its investment banking arm was retained by Gupta to advise him on a transaction that would give him a majority stake in Infogroup. According to the filing, Gupta was due to pay 'success' and 'incentive' fees should various transactions take place.

One week before CCMP closed the acquisition deal, Blackstone sent Gupta a bill for $6.75m of fees and $46,641 of expenses, and the firm says it is still awaiting reimbursement.

Since the Infogroup takeover, Gupta has set up a new firm, Database101, which compiles business contacts segmented according to demographics, and mines online public databases for information.

Web sites: www.infogroup.com and www.database101.com .