Hedge funder lists UES pad bought for $4.5M over ask

FX Concepts’ John Read Taylor lived in apartment for only six months

From left: John Read Taylor and 2 East 88th Street
From left: John Read Taylor and 2 East 88th Street

Hedge fund mogul John Read Taylor turned heads in 2010 when he paid $4.5 million above ask for a swanky Upper East Side co-op — a purchase that appears to have been funded with a $20 million loan from his firm. Now, after gut renovating the apartment and living in it for a mere six months, the financier is putting the pad on the market for $25 million.

Top Manhattan broker Roger Erickson of Sotheby’s International Realty listed the co-op at 2 East 88th Street last week for a whopping $6,203 per square foot, StreetEasy shows.

Taylor, the chairman of Manhattan-based hedge fund FX Concepts, purchased the 4,030-square-foot apartment in June 2010 for $22 million — a fair shot more than the unit’s then $17.5 million asking price. The apartment was only on the market for 12 days before it went into contract.

But Taylor didn’t bear the financial blow on his own, according to sources and documents. The board of FX Concepts’ parent company, International Foreign Exchange Concepts Holdings, took out a $20 million loan in June 2010, which was then distributed to Taylor, internal company documents provided to The Real Deal show.

The loan was for the purchase of Taylor’s personal apartment, a former FX Concepts employee told TRD. Indeed, minutes from a May 2010 meeting indicated that FX executives discussed taking out a $20 million loan to “finance an apartment for John.”

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The source, who requested anonymity, didn’t know why Taylor purchased the unit for so much more than the asking price. But the firm has pushed Taylor to sell the apartment for some time because of the hedge fund’s debt load, the source said.

Taylor, who declined to comment, only recently moved into the co-op on the corner of Fifth Avenue after completing a two-and-a-half year renovation on the full-floor, three-bedroom, four-bathroom abode. The apartment also includes double living rooms with a fireplace, a formal dining room and a chef’s kitchen. The pre-war co-op building opposite the Guggenheim Museum was designed by architect Roger Ferris and has Central Park views.

Erickson confirmed that Taylor was moving but declined to comment further on his business.

“It’s an absolutely stunning renovation,” Erickson said of the apartment. “And the views are really great.”