From the February issue: It’s been a sort of parlor game in New York’s real estate community for
some time: speculating on whether peak-market buyers will hold on to
their highly leveraged properties.
Then, in a move that shook the industry last month, Tishman Speyer
Properties and BlackRock Realty decided to turn over the keys to the
$5.4 billion Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
But not everyone has gone this route. Other overextended borrowers
have kept control of their properties following a debt restructuring,
including developers Lev Leviev and Joseph Moinian.
As part of a workout — the complex process that’s often decided by
the leverage each party has in the development — the bank or private
equity firm must weigh its options.  [more]

Former Africa Israel USA chief executive Rotem Rosen has been named
president of Polar USA/HFZ Capital, The Real Deal has learned. Polar is a unit of Israel-based Polar-ZSG Group, a partnership formed
by real estate investors Ziel Feldman, Tamir Sapir and Giron
Development & Building Ltd., to buy distressed real estate. Rosen left Lev Leviev’s Africa Israel earlier this year amid increasing
turmoil involving the Israeli billionaire’s global real estate
holdings, which include the Apthorp, the controversial condominium
conversion at 390 West End Avenue, and 20 Pine Street, a condo where
Africa Israel wrested control from former partner Shaya Boymelgreen. [more]