Italian real estate and financial firm Sorgente Group is the latest among a series of international investors eyeing Manhattan office buildings. Sorgente CEO Valter Mainetti told Bloomberg that his group is in talks to purchase a 51 percent stake in the 57-story Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway in the Financial District. Sorgente, which is also invested in the Flatiron Building, is reportedly in talks to invest in two other New York City buildings, but Mainetti said he could not disclose what they were.

From the April issue: Normally the cash-rich Italian real estate giant Sorgente Group follows
a simple investment strategy: It buys and patiently holds and manages
iconic skyscrapers in major cities around the world, including the
Flatiron Building, which it acquired in January. “Our plans have a life
of over 20 years,” said Veronica Mainetti, daughter of Sorgente CEO
Valter Mainetti and head of its New York-based U.S. office. “We’re not
going to start with the conversion of Flatiron today — maybe 10 years
from now.” Meanwhile, the company will rent the Flatiron to existing
tenants and watch the recession come and (it hopes) go. But Sorgente’s
new venture in New York City, a luxury for-sale condominium development
company operating within a severely stepped-up timeframe — not 20
years but 18 months — is being forced to respond to here-and-now
market conditions. [more]