He may have been aquitted on all charges, but have the revelations about Michael Jackson's private life consigned his career to history? Nick Morrison looks at the future of pop's biggest superstar

SOME of the most startling evidence to have emerged during the trial concerned the state of Michael Jackson's finances. His debts are estimated at anywhere from $270-600m.

Accountant John Duross O'Bryan testified last month that Jackson was in severe financial straits, and spent around $20-30m more than he earned every year, including around $1.5m a month on Neverland.

O'Bryan estimated Jackson's liabilities at $415m. But although his assets are estimated to be worth $475m, the bulk of this lies in his ownership of the Beatles' back catalogue, which itself is under threat.

Jackson bought the rights to around 250 Beatles songs for $47.5m in 1985, outbidding Sir Paul McCartney, but ten years later he sold a 50 per cent stake to Sony for around $150m. Royalties from this back catalogue, estimated at around $60m a year, provide the majority of his income, augmented by royalties from his own songs.

But in 2001 he used the Beatles catalogue, as well as his own music library, valued at $75m, and part of his third major asset, the Neverland ranch, as collateral on loans from the Bank of America valued at $270m.

Last month, the Bank of America sold those loans to a private investment group. One of those loans, $200m, is due to be paid in full in December, and the investment fund may prove less patient than the Bank, giving rise to the possibility that Jackson could lose the copyright to his own songs as well as the Beatles' library.

Jackson's financial problems led to a Madison Square Gardens comeback in 2001 being dubbed "Michael Aid", but while there are those who claim his position is not as parlous as is supposed, and that there is more cash hidden away, it appears that some sort of musical rehabilitation is as much a financial as a psychological necessity.