417 Fifth Avenue

A mixed-use building at 417 Fifth Avenue sold today for $140 million, according to Cushman & Wakefield, who represented the seller. The seller is a joint venture operating as W2007 417 Fifth Avenue Realty. The buyer is Inmobiliaria Carso, S.A. DE C.V., an investment company controlled by Mexican businessman and investor Carlos Slim Helu. The 11-story, 412,000-square-foot office and retail building , located at 38th Street, has approximately 380,000 square feet of above-grade space including 23,500 square feet of retail fronting Fifth Avenue. A Cushman & Wakefield team represented the seller. Venture Capital Properties represented the buyer. According to Cushman, $4.2 billion in Manhattan commercial properties sold or went into contract over the year ending June 1. Foreign buyers have accounted for 15 percent of them. TRD

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417 Fifth Avenue

A mixed-use building at 417 Fifth Avenue sold today for $140 million, according to Cushman & Wakefield, who represented the seller. The seller is a joint venture operating as W2007 417 Fifth Avenue Realty. The buyer is Inmobiliaria Carso, S.A. DE C.V., an investment company controlled by Mexican businessman and investor Carlos Slim Helu. The 11-story, 412,000-square-foot office and retail building , located at 38th Street, has approximately 380,000 square feet of above-grade space including 23,500 square feet of retail fronting Fifth Avenue. A Cushman & Wakefield team represented the seller. Venture Capital Properties represented the buyer. According to Cushman, $4.2 billion in Manhattan commercial properties sold or went into contract over the year ending June 1. Foreign buyers have accounted for 15 percent of them. TRD

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Carlos Slim Helu, the richest man in the world, is the foreign buyer
that was yesterday reported as in contract to buy 417 Fifth Avenue for $140 million, or $343 per square foot, a
source told the Observer. The 408,000-square-foot office tower was
purchased for $250 million by the Moinian Group and Goldman Sachs just
three years ago. It is currently 96 percent leased, but 25 percent of
the leases expire within the next two years. [NYO]

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]