Ron Burkle’s $155M play on Wall Street: American Stock Exchange HQ

Gets 86 Trinity Place from Clarion Partners, which envisioned boutique hotel at Renaissance Revival landmark

From left: Ron Burkle, founder, Yucaipa Companies and David Gilbert, chief executive officer, Clarion Partners in front of 86 Trinity Place (Getty Images, Clarion Partners, Google Maps)
From left: Ron Burkle, founder, Yucaipa Companies and David Gilbert, chief executive officer, Clarion Partners in front of 86 Trinity Place (Getty Images, Clarion Partners, Google Maps)

Los Angeles-based billionaire Ron Burkle is buying into the fundamentals of New York’s Financial District — and it’s more than a stock play.

Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies recently bought the former headquarters of the American Stock Exchange at 86 Trinity Place in New York City’s Financial District from Clarion Partners for $155 million, records show.

Neither Yucaipa nor Clarion immediately responded to requests for comment.

Yucaipa got $97.1 million in financing from Los Angeles-based commercial lender iBorrow for the acquisition.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Built in 1921, the 176,000-square-foot property at 86 Trinity Place served as the headquarters for the American Stock Exchange from the 1950s until the New York Stock Exchange acquired its smaller rival in 2008.

New York-based Clarion acquired a 70 percent stake in the building for $105 million in 2015. The firm and minority partner GHC Development had planned to spend $65 million to refurbish the building into a retail and hotel development. It’s unclear whether Burkle will overhaul the building, which has been listed as a national historic landmark.

Burkle’s buy comes a few months after another one of his New York properties, the NoMad Hotel, ran into issues. The upscale boutique — owned by Burkle and hotelier Andrew Zobler — was facing foreclosure, after its mezzanine lenders scheduled a UCC foreclosure auction.

The billionaire investor also owns a stake in Soho House Group and counts even higher-profile investments in his portfolio. He has been a co-owner — with Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux — of the Pittsburgh Penguins pro hockey franchise since 1998. And Burkle more recently and bought Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch for $22 million last year, an apparent bargain from a one-time list price of $100 million.