From left: 200 West Street and 30 Hudson Street

Goldman Sachs is reconfiguring its real estate footprint and, according to the New York Post, that could have a major impact on its 42-story Jersey City property that remains the tallest in the state. The firm plans to move some of its real estate, technology and administrative staff to its new headquarters at 200 West Street in Battery Park City from the 1.5 million-square-foot office it developed in 2004 at 30 Hudson Street in Jersey City. [more]

Having punished the five largest mortgage servicers for their foreclosure practices to the tune of a $25 billion settlement, federal regulators are now setting their sights on the next tier of financial firms whose methods are increasingly coming under fire.

According to the New York Times, the Federal Reserve has recommended fines for eight more firms: HSBC’s U.S. division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs. [more]

Financial research and ratings firm Standard & Poor’s has been pushed out of commercial mortgage-backed securities deals following a $15 billion sale that went south last year, Bloomberg News reported.

Last July, a massive deal between Citigroup and Goldman Sachs fell apart after S&P pulled its ratings for the securities in the deal, saying it had to review its model used in rating the assets. Now, Wall Street is pushing back, finally busting the trio of ratings agencies that have had a stranglehold on the U.S. bond market, Bloomberg said. [more]

Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and several other notable investors have turned bullish on the U.S. housing market, the Wall Street Journal reported, buying up shares of home building companies, like Pulte Group, Beazer Homes and Hovnanian Enterprises. Those stocks are up 30 percent since the end of the third quarter, according to Dow Jones, far outpacing the 10.5 percent increase recorded by the Standard & Poor’s 500.

In a recent report, Goldman said it expects home prices to decline 3 percent next year, before gaining 30 percent — not taking inflation into account — through 2022 [more]

Insurance giant Manulife Financial, the Toronto-based parent of John Hancock Financial, said today that it bought 10 Exchange Place, a 30-story trophy office tower in Jersey City, for $285 million, marking the company’s first major acquisition in the New York City market.

Manulife, the largest insurance firm in Canada, outbid a number of rival firms for the 748,000-square-foot building, located on the Hudson River waterfront and home to tenants including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Ace Insurance.

Atlanta-based Invesco sold the property after placing the building up for sale through a bidding process that started earlier this year, however Manulife’s managed to top all rival offers in the first round, eventually settling on a price of $381 a square foot. [more]

Boston Properties has sold Two Grand Central to an affiliate of Rockwood Capital for $401 million, Real Estate Weekly reported. Rockwood assumed the $176.6 million mortgage in the transaction.

The tower, also known as 140 East 45th Street, was owned in a joint venture between U.S. Real Estate Opportunities I L.P, a fund managed by Goldman Sachs, and Boston Properties, which had a 60 percent stake in the building, which is between 44th and 45th streets. The real estate investment trust, founded by Mortimer Zuckerman in 1970, said in an earnings call it received $125.9 million for its portion of the structure. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Andrew Singer of the Singer & Bassuk Organization, 77 Water Street and Kathleen McSharry of the Singer & Bassuk OrganizationThe 26-story office building 77 Water Street in Lower Manhattan, which is net-leased in its entirety by financial giant Goldman Sachs, was refinanced with a $45 million loan from AXA-Equitable.

The loan was arranged by the Singer & Bassuk Organization on behalf of the building’s owners, the William Kaufman Organization and Travelers Insurance, according to a statement from Singer & Bassuk. The refinancing on the 600,000-square-foot building, located between Gouverneur Lane and William Street, closed Oct. 21, according to Singer & Bassuk CEO Andrew Singer, who negotiated the deal with
senior managing director Kathleen McSharry. – Adam Pincus [more]

Greg Agran, head of commodities trading at Goldman Sachs, has purchased a condominium unit at Tribeca’s trendiest new development, Tribeca flair V33 at 33 Vestry Street, for $6.16 million, the New York Observer reported.

Agran, who also owns a $13 million apartment six blocks north at 13 Harrison Street with his wife, purchased the four-bedroom, three-bathroom unit through an LLC by the name of Morning Dew but the deed was signed in his own name, according to the Observer.

The building on Vestry Street is one of a kind, said Wendy Maitland, a broker for Town Residential who has had the listing. “It’s a 52-foot-wide lot,” she explained. [more]

Anglo Irish Bank protestFrom the October issue: The auction of Anglo Irish Bank’s troubled $9.5 billion U.S. loan portfolio has surprised some industry observers — and spread fear among some borrowers, who worry about having new lenders take over their troubled projects.

Ben Thypin, a senior market analyst at Real Capital Analytics, said the fact that three lenders divvied up Anglo Irish’s portfolio was” not particularly unexpected.”

“No one but a bank could really afford to buy the performing loans, so the performers and non performers inevitably went to different buyers,” he said.

But what was surprising was who ended up at the winners’ table — Lone Star Funds acquired about $5 billion in sub- and nonperforming loans, while Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase acquired the remaining performing loans in separate transactions.
[more]

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase

From the October issue: Wall Street is a place, but it’s also a state of mind. And that’s true now more than ever, as the headquarters of New York’s most powerful banks are no longer clustered on one particular Financial District thoroughfare.
Likewise, the homes belonging to the bosses of Wall Street’s biggest firms aren’t concentrated in any one place either. While there’s still some historic bias toward Uptown over Downtown, not every Wall Street titan gravitates toward the most exclusive white-glove co-ops. In addition, the success that these high-finance wizards have had with their NYC residential real estate investments is also all over the map.
What follows is The Real Deal’s rundown of who, where, and how they’ve done. First up is Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose address is 1185 Park Avenue. Click here for more. [more]