Judge Tosses OC Ventures Bankruptcy, Clearing Up Campus Deal

A federal bankruptcy judge tossed a Chicago student housing landlord’s Chapter 11 case last week, clearing the way for local investor Stephen Bus’ firm to snag a West Loop property at a steep discount.

Judge Deborah Thorne of the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the bankruptcy of an affiliate of Shangxuan Tan’s Chicago-based firm OC Ventures that owns The Letterman property at 410 South Morgan Street, a 482-bed building serving the nearby University of Illinois at Chicago.

The dismissal is a key win for Bus’ firm, Up Campus Holdings, which is now poised to force the sale of the property for $44 million. That price tag represents an $8 million discount from the original $52 million that Up Campus offered for the property back in April 2024.

The case is the latest blow for the property’s current landlord Tan, the “severely distressed” dealmaker behind OC Ventures, according to the litigation. Tan, who reportedly relocated to Singapore, has faced a long trail of litigation accusing him of siphoning away investments and loans for personal gain.

Tan’s entity tried to use the bankruptcy courts to hit the reset button on a deal that flew off the rails. He claimed in his bankruptcy filing to have liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million owed to between 10 and 99 creditors, with assets totaling $50 million to $100 million.

Facing a state court receivership driven by a $38 million Fannie Mae foreclosure suit, the landlord filed for Chapter 11 in March, mere hours after a Cook County judge ordered a receiver to take control of the building. The debtor’s ultimate goal? To blow up the $44 million contract with Up Campus, which the landlord claimed was “null and void,” and fish for a new buyer willing to pay closer to $50 million.

Judge Thorne wasn’t buying it. In her dismissal order, she ruled the Chapter 11 filing was essentially a “two-party dispute” between the debtor and Fannie Mae. She noted the debtor offered no hard proof — such as expert testimony, a budget, or alternative offers — to back up its claim that reopening the marketing process could yield a $50 million payday. Crucially, Up Campus’s active $44 million offer is already more than enough to make Fannie Mae and the unsecured creditors whole, legal documents indicate.

Bus declined to comment beyond noting his firm is continuing to press its case to buy the building. Multiple representatives of OC Ventures and Tan didn’t return requests for comment.

Court documents reveal a messy, year-long renegotiation between Tan’s firm and Up Campus that steadily chipped away at the property’s value. The initial $52 million price tag was slashed to $49 million in September 2024, and then dropped to $47 million a month later. The final chop to $44 million came in April 2025, after internal chaos at OC Ventures allegedly derailed Up Campus’s plan to simply assume the existing Fannie Mae loan.

Fannie Mae’s foreclosure suit was triggered after the mortgage giant alleged Tan made “unpermitted transfers” of the property by borrowing and then allegedly defaulting on an additional $8 million in debt secured by the building. That debt was provided by Rochester, New York-based lender Monroe Capital and an investor named Daili Xiao.

With the bankruptcy shield gone, the state court’s appointed receiver, Dallas-based Chris Neilson of Trigild, is clear to take the reins of the property. Meanwhile, Up Campus is advancing its own federal lawsuit against the OC Ventures affiliate in control of the property, with the goal of forcing the closing. The case remains pending, but if successful, Bus and his team walk away with a prime West Loop property, and OC Ventures’ equity holders lose their gamble for a bigger payout.