Pop icon Michael Jackson has avoided a foreclosure sale on his Neverland Ranch after a large real estate investment firm Colony Capital, LLC on Sunday acquired the existing loan on the California property, allowing him to keep ownership of the 2,700-acre ranch in Santa Barbara.

The ranch was set to be auctioned this Wednesday (May 14) after Jackson defaulted on loan payments, but the move has been averted on May 9 after the Los Angeles based private equity firm Colony headed by Thomas Barrack agreed to purchase the existing loan on Neverland Ranch from an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based private equity and hedge fund group.

Colony has invested more than $39 billion in real-estate related assets since its founding in 1991. Sources familiar with the matter say the loan on Neverland is about $23.5 million.

"I am pleased with recent developments involving Neverland Ranch and I am in discussions with Colony and Tom Barrack with regard to the Ranch and other matters that would allow me to focus on the future," Jackson said in a press release.

In March, the pop star had managed to work out a 60 day agreement with Fortress Investment Group LLC to retain ownership of his iconic property and to postpone the auction until May 14.

While at the peak of his popularity, Jackson bought the property in the bucolic rolling hills of Los Olivos, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, from real estate baron and Golf course entrepreneur William Bone for $28 million in 1988.

Jackson beautifully landscaped the area, decorating it with more than a dozen amusement park rides, including a merry-go-round, Ferris wheel and roller coaster and installed a zoo complete with flamingos, giraffes, elephants and orangutans. He employed around 70 staff to look after the upkeep of the property.

Then the ‘King of Pop’ saw his financial empire fall to pieces and he moved out of Neverland. He has not lived on the ranch since his acquittal on child molestation charges in 2005.

Jackson had named ‘Neverland’ after the mythical land of Peter Pan where children never
grew up. It was an endeavor, he said, to recreate the childhood he was denied.
Born Michael Joseph Jackson on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, Jackson became a singing superstar at age 11, when he had four consecutive #1 hits with his youthful band of brothers, The Jackson Five.

Michael Jackson, who was unquestionably one of the great pop music stars of the 1980s, is now known less for his music than for his erratic behavior and plastic surgeries. The formerly high-flying singer and songwriter, whose “Thriller” stayed on the charts for over two years, spent 37 nonconsecutive weeks at number one and became the best-selling album of all time by selling 25 million copies in the U.S. alone and around another 20 million overseas, has been under pressure with mounting debts due to the charges he fought for molesting a 13-year-old boy, in 2003, at the ranch and holding him captive.