Michael Jackson gives up title to Neverland

Michael Jackson has given up title to his Neverland ranch, transferring the deed to a company he partly controls. The singer filed a grant deed on the ranch Monday that makes the new owner an entity called the Sycamore Valley Ranch Co. LLC, Tom Pearson of the Santa Barbara County clerk-recorder’s office said Wednesday. Sycamore Valley Ranch Co. is a joint venture between Jackson and an affiliate of Colony Capital LLC, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction who was not authorized to speak on the record and requested anonymity. The person could not say what would become of the 2,500-acre property in the bucolic, oak-studded hills of Santa Barbara County’s wine country in Los Olivos, 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles. A call to an attorney for Jackson, L. Londell McMillan, was not immediately returned Wednesday. Jackson had gone into default on the $24.5 million he owes on the property and had faced foreclosure before Colony Capital bailed him out earlier this year by purchasing his loan.