Richard Marin, chairman and CEO of Africa Israel USA has resigned suddenly and left the company after just two years on the job, the Wall Street Journal reported. Tamir Kazaz, the company’s CFO, will take over as CEO but Africa Israel does not plan to appoint a new chairman. It doesn’t appear to have been an entirely amicable split, with sources saying Marin’s departure came unexpectedly and amid disagreements with senior management. [more]

One Brooklyn Bridge Park is back on top in the race for the priciest condo in the borough. A 9,486-square-foot triplex in the 438-unit Brooklyn Heights building was recently snatched up for $8.495 million by the founder of an investment management firm, who purchased the unit through a limited-liability corporation to veil his identity. The spacious loft actually comprises six units of the original development’s plan: the buyer combined three two-bedrooms, a one-bedroom and two studios to create the space. A previous buyer, who walked away from a $600,000-plus deposit after the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008, had already merged three of those units. One Brooklyn Bridge Park is roughly 30 percent sold. The most expensive Brooklyn condo in 2008 was a $7 million loft in David Walentas’ the Clock Tower Building, which is now back on the market for $8.5 million. But neither loft will have a fighting chance for the priciest prize if Walentas manages to sell the Clock Tower’s crown jewel this year, a triplex penthouse listed for $25 million. The unit, which features a four-sided glass-faced clock and birds-eye views of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, was recently eyed by the likes of Jay-Z and Ralph Lauren. [NYT]

Lev Leviev is looking to appease his company’s creditors in order to avoid putting his embattled Africa-Israel company under bankruptcy protection. After months of trying to restructure $2 billion of the company’s debt, Leviev is now offering up $200 million of his own funds and a hefty portion of his stake in the company order to stabilize Africa-Israel, according to a Dec. 2 filing in an Israeli court. Leviev’s high-profile investments, such as One Madison Avenue, the Clock Tower building in Manhattan, bought for $200 million at the height of the market in 2007, and the New York Times headquarters, purchased for $525 million around the same time, led to his downfall, according to Bloomberg. “Hubris was Leviev’s sin,” Micha Cherniak, CEO of Lehava Investment, said. “He stopped listening to the managers he hired and began calling all the shots, focusing on an aggressive expansion of the company.”

After Labor Day, luxury real estate brokers will be eyeing about 10 big
listings that will act as bellwethers for the residential market as it
heads into the fall. If these properties, including Brooke Astor’s
duplex at 778 Park Avenue and the penthouse at the Plaza, sell, the
market will look better, brokers said. In Brooklyn, the market will
appear stronger if a triplex in Dumbo’s Clock Tower Building, on the
market for $25 million, manages to sell. Another key unit is the $60
million, 9,799-square-foot penthouse in the Mark Hotel, which Stribling
& Associates’ Kirk Henckels said might appeal to a foreign buyer. [more]

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
has signed a five-year lease for space at developer Charles Cohen’s 475
Park Avenue South, at 32nd Street. For a rent of $1 a year, Cohen, a
film aficionado, gave the non-profit group — which archives, distributes and
restores experimental and avant-garde films — an approximately
3,600-square-foot space on the sixth floor. The film group will move
from its 900-square-foot space at the Clock Tower Building in Tribeca, where it
pays about $1 a foot in rent. As part of the move, a 15-seat theater will
also be built in the space. “I was in a position to help, and I thought
that I should,” Cohen said. “They are a wonderful group doing important
work.”