Trio of financial firms sign leases at 527 Madison Avenue

Three financial firms have signed leases at Midtown trophy 527 Madison Avenue, The Real Deal has learned. New York City-based hedge fund Long Pond Capital signed a four-year, 8,200-square-foot lease for the 15th floor of the tower, at 54th street, while fixed-income brokerage and financial advisory firm Wunderlich Securities took the 10th floor’s 8,600 square feet, for five years.

A second hedge fund, Meru Capital, also signed an approximately 8,000-square-foot lease, renewing their 17th floor space for six years, and bringing the vacancy in the approximately 200,000-square-foot building to 5.9 percent, according to CoStar Group data.

James Frederick, principal at Cassidy Turley, who represented the landlord with colleague Peter Occhi in all three transactions, said the building’s “full-floor layouts and city views” attracted the firms.

Brian Hay, vice president at CBRE, served as tenant representative for Wunderlich while Daniel Madison, executive managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, represented Long Pond.

Mitsui Fudosan, a Japanese investment firm, bought 527 Madison from Harry Macklowe at a rough time for the developer: September 2008. Mitsui Fudosan paid $225 million for the 26-story tower.

Smaller financial firms have recently helped raise rents in Midtown, an office leasing market that slumped considerably during the recession. But while larger financial clients — namely, banks — are still shrinking their Manhattan footprints, hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds have begun picking up the slack and leasing up in the city’s priciest office leasing market.

Long Pond will relocate from 410 Park Avenue; Wunderlich was previously a sublessee at the address.