Savanna sells 5 Hanover Square to CIM for $105M

Savanna is selling the office building at 5 Hanover Square to CIM Group, a private equity firm based in Los Angeles, for around $105 million – twice the amount the real estate investment firm paid just three years ago, Crain’s reported.

Eastdil Secured’s Adam Spies and Doug Harmon arranged the sale for Savanna, but declined to comment to Crain’s.

Savanna picked up the 335,000-square-foot building back in 2010 after the previous owner, Kent Swig, surrendered the property after going into default. Savanna bought out the mortgage for $51.5 million. Savanna kept Swig as the building’s leasing agent after the deal, during which time several transactions brought about 95 percent occupancy, a source told Crain’s.

“The market really turned around, [Savanna’s] strategy of buying notes was spot on,” Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, who sold 5 Hanover Square’s mortgage to Savanna on behalf of Capital One Bank, told Crain’s.

CIM, an active real estate buyer in New York City in recent years, also acquired 11 Madison Avenue and Is Developing 432 Park Avenue, a luxury residential property now going up on the corner of East 56th Street, with Macklowe Properties. [Crain’s] –Julie Strickland