KKR exec buys UES co-op for $21M

A senior executive at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co., Manhattan-based private equity firm, paid $21.5 million for an Upper East Side cooperative unit last month, according to city records posted today.

Marc Lipschultz, a partner at KKR, bought the third-floor apartment building at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street facing Central Park.

KKR became famous for controversial, highly-leveraged buyouts of ailing companies, including that of RJR Nabisco, which inspired the book Barbarians at the Gate.

The seller was Phyllis Gelb, the wife of the late chief executive of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Richard L. Gelb, who died in 2004. She now has a residence in California.

The building is also home to fund manager and philanthropist George Soros and Scott Bommer, president of SAB Capital Management. Bommer paid $46 million earlier this year for his 17-room apartment, the highest priced paid for a co-op in the city.