A family-owned portfolio quietly traded on Jan. 10 for more than $300 million to a fund controlled by RREEF Alternative Investments, the global alternative investment management business run by Deutsche Bank’s asset management division.
The off-market transaction was handled by the family’s attorney, Irwin Levy of Levy Holm Pellegrino & Drath.
“They endowed us with enormous discretion in arranging the deal,” Levy said.
The 20 members of ABJ Realty were stockholders in a 1930s corporation that owned eight apartment buildings and 56 unsold sponsor units in a ninth building. ABJ also controlled the ninth building’s management.
Levy said about 20 selected bidders offered to either buy the corporation or buy the real estate – but would then need to pony up an additional $50 million to cover the family’s tax bite.
By selling it to the RREEF fund, neither the seller nor the buyer faces the tax bite.
“Having an institution that was a tax-free entity eliminated the tax concerns,” said Levy of the eventual pension fund buyer. “It took a lot of additional work and structuring to do it.”
The most valuable buildings include 98 Riverside Dr., 340 E. 52nd St., 56 Seventh Ave. and condos at 172 W. 79th St. The others are 110 Bennett Ave., 231 E. 76th St. and 725 W. 184th St. in Manhattan, 185 Claremont Ave. in the Bronx and 105-05 69th Ave. in Queens.
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The same Eastern Consolidated team that just sold the Devonshire House in Greenwich Village for $110 million is bringing a neighboring building to market.
Eric Anton, Ronald Solarz, Sam Schneider and Daniel Glaser just began marketing 85 Fourth Ave. for Rabina Properties. The sale, for estate-planning purposes, is expected to generate over $100 million.
The seven-story apartment building takes up the entire block front from 10th to 11th streets. Its 150,000 square feet contains 160 apartments, four retail stores and a parking garage. Half the units are rent stabilized, while the rest go for market rates.
Anton, Solarz and Schechtman are also marketing 425-427 Seventh Ave., a retail development and prime billboard site across from Penn Station.
The building has 39 feet of frontage between 33rd and 34th streets, and the existing four-story building will be delivered vacant and can be developed to 36,000 square feet.
They won’t talk price, but with Vornado waiting to redevelop the neighboring Hotel Pennsylvania and Madison Square Garden, and retail a beloved investment vehicle, the small site could generate over $1,000 a foot.
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Harrison Goldin, the former city controller, is relocating from 400 Madison Ave. to the Empire State Building.
Goldin Associates, his financial advisory and turnaround firm, has signed a lease for 10,577 feet on the 18th floor. The building now has asking rents in the mid-$50s.
Charles Borrock and Philip Weiss of Cushman & Wakefield brought in the financial firm, while Stephen Eynon of CB Richard Ellis is the in-house on-site agent for the W&H property owned by Empire State Building Associates, a partnership led by Peter L. Malkin and the Estate of Leona M. Helmsley.
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Secrets: Which trendy jeans maker is running around town with his mentor and buddy, the head of a successful large competitor, seeking a small store but only checking out potential sites based on signs posted in windows rather than using a broker to ferret out spots? [email protected]
