A legal catfight is raging between the big stakeholders in the famed Wilhelmina modeling agency, even as the company struggles to beef up its pencil-thin finances.
Wilhelmina — whose flamboyant president, Sean Patterson, is a regular on reality shows like “She’s Got the Look” — is angling to reverse its losses while the agency’s current and former owners spar over a deal that took the company public last year.
Dieter Esch, a German-born tycoon who last year sold his controlling stake for more than $22 million, has sued to thwart buyer Mark E. Schwarz from lowering the purchase price because an audit of the company’s 2008 finances allegedly didn’t pass muster.
“You probably will see a resolution within two or three weeks,” Esch told The Post. “Or, you will not see a resolution.”
Schwarz, who referred all questions to Wilhelmina executives, is demanding a big chunk of Esch’s shares in light of the revised audit. Meanwhile, Esch — a hard-charging entrepreneur who raised eyebrows when he initially put his teenage daughter in charge of Wilhelmina after buying the agency in 1989 — contends that Schwarz missed the deadline for such a demand.
“It’s frustrating to watch people I like fighting,” said Patterson, adding that Esch is “like a father” to him and that he is also friendly with Schwarz.
Wilhelmina has been late on vendor payments, sources said, with its operating loss having widened to $2.6 million last year.
Amid the crunch, Signature Bank in December failed to renew its $2 million credit line with Wilhelmina. Esch said he has since been extending the day-to-day credit needed to pay the agency’s models, and Wilhelmina CFO John Murray said the agency is “working with other banks now” to get a new credit line.
Murray said he is not too concerned, as Wilhelmina broke even last year excluding charges. During the current and previous fiscal quarters, Wilhelmina, “had the highest gross billings in the history of the company,” he said.
The legal squabble is the latest tumultuous chapter for Wilhelmina, whose business has floundered since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, when its roster claimed luminaries like Lauren Hutton and Angelica Huston.
Patterson “likes to play the kingpin, and decides the fates of all kinds of girls on TV,” one source said. Yet Wilhelmina has been largely relegated to the less-glamorous niches of the industry, including body parts for cosmetics ads and men’s fashion.
The agency’s roster likewise boasts pop star Fergie, who landed on the cover of Elle magazine’s May issue.