Ross: No plans to abandon Stuy Town bid

From left: Wilbur Ross, Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village, Bill Ackman

Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor who has long been interested in a takeover of the foreclosed Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, said he has no plans to back out even after hedge funder Bill Ackman’s recent move to wrest control of the 11,227-unit complex. “My interest has not changed, nor has the interest of my partners,” he said in an e-mail to the Post. His partners are the LeFrak Orgniazation and Centerbridge Partners, and the trio had planned since January, when developer Tishman Speyer defaulted on its $3 billion mortgage on the property, to wait until the time was right to swoop in. On Monday, though, Ackman and Winthrop Realty Trust announced that they had purchased a piece of the $1.4 billion second mortgage that would allow them to foreclosure on Stuy Town’s current operator and become the de-facto owners. Ackman said he wants to convert the complex to co-ops through a bankruptcy plan, but Ross expressed doubt over whether such a plan would benefit tenants and lenders. He said that Ackman would need to raise $3 billion from tenant purchasers in order to satisfy lenders during a co-op conversion, but “it is not at all clear that tenants would find a total price in excess of $3 billion attractive. [Post]