Private equity giant Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman has agreed to buy up old loans for billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s Brooklyn Nets and the Barclays Center, of which Forest City Ratner has a 55 percent stake.
Schwarzman is mulling over whether to rework about $500 million in PILOT bonds (payment in lieu of taxes). This would allow the Barclays Center to lower its nearly 7 percent interest rate on the bonds, the New York Post reported. Goldman Sachs issued the bonds and is advising Barclays.
Blackstone recently refinanced $60 million of the Brooklyn Nets’ debt and lent $50 million to the team for its new Sunset Park practice space. [NYP] — Mark Maurer