Rexford’s Laura Clark Era Begins

Rexford’s Laura Clark-era has begun. Clark took the corner office April 1 (not an April Fools thing), bringing an official end to co-CEOs Michael Frankel and Howard Schwimmer’s reign.

Frankel celebrated early by selling shares. He disposed of more than 23,000 shares in mid-March, each at an around $35 price tag, amounting to $800,000-plus in his pocket. He still owns almost 600,000 shares of common stock — not to mention lots of long-term incentive partnership units and performance units.

In other Rexford news, post-Elliott stake, the industrial real estate investment trust posted an update to shareholders, assuring them the company is keeping its promise to sell assets and repurchase shares.

The REIT disposed of five properties for an aggregate sales price of $127 million, in the three months ended March 31, and purchased its common stock for $200 million. The real estate trades included three deals previously undisclosed, it said:

29010 Avenue Paine in Valencia for $31 million, or $310 per square foot, which was sold to an owner-user.
13700 to 13738 Slover Avenue in Fontana for $14.5 million, or $79 per square foot, which was sold to another owner-user
600 to 708 Vermont Avenue in Anaheim for about $41 million, or $77 per square foot.

The company has another $170 million in dispositions in talks. We know the REIT wants to dispose of $400 million to $500 million worth of real estate this year. Clark said so in the first earnings call since the CEO succession announcement and related-activist investor Elliott Management becoming one of the largest shareholders, shaking up the typically vanilla REIT.

An L.A. loss … or L.A. Lost

Late last year, The Real Deal reported J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot sold the Santa Monica creative office it called home — and in another scoop, Teddy Schwarzman’s independent studio Black Bear was the $31 million buyer. ]

Now there are more details on Abrams’ move, courtesy of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, which reported there’ll be cuts at Bad Robot, which helped make Lost, and that the scaled down production company is ditching Los Angeles for New York. (Some backstory: In December 2024, Bad Robot extended a deal with Warner Bros, but that deal is apparently much more modest than the original). It feels like a sign of the times. Production is leaving Tinseltown because it’s cheaper elsewhere, so studio owners are losing millions of dollars, and their studios.

Downtown towers edition

Oceanwide Plaza, TCW (or Banc of California Tower, if it sticks) and Wedbush Center made headlines this week. Let’s take it from the top.

The confirmation hearing that could have sealed the stalled-Oceanwide Plaza’s fate was pushed to May 19, after the bankruptcy court granted the City of Los Angeles’ request for a continuance. The city wasn’t the only hold up. The Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector and the United States Trustee filed their own oppositions, which you can read more about here.The city claimed to need more time after having a conversation with the proposed $470 million purchaser: Dr. Kali Chaudhuri’s KPC Group and Lendlease. The city wants to review and assess the creditors’ ability to close the deal, secure financing and complete the development.

In separate statements post-publication, Oceanwide’s chief restructuring officer Bradley Sharp and lead counsel Sharon Weiss both said versions of the same thing — that this is all procedural, that the fundamentals haven’t changed, that they look forward to productive discussions and they expect to be in a position to confirm the plan come May.

If all goes to plan, Manulife US REIT will sell its office tower at 865 South Figueroa Street to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for $92.5 million.

The proposed trade would come out to about $129 per square foot, which appears to be a near-bottom, and could be another government-buyer and tenant-turned-landord scenario — similar to the county’s Gas Company Tower purchase, and Capital Group’s Bank of America Plaza deal. LADWP said in a statement that “if approved, this acquisition would provide needed office space to support the expansion of LADWP’s workforce (and) consolidate operations.”

Lastly, Cerberus Capital Management’s Wedbush Center faces foreclosure. The alternative investment outfit owes about $135 million on the office tower on Wilshire Boulevard. It appears to have been a long time coming. The tower lost its namesake tenant, its value was slashed 70 percent and its CMBS debt was stuck in special servicing for a year until the latest chapter — which seems like the lender ramping up the fight to recoup its money. A hypothetical deal would come out to around $127 per square foot, too.

Mahan money

Kilroy CEO Angela Aman joined the Los Angeles real estate crew backing Matt Mahan. She donated $10,000 to his campaign. And, speaking of campaigns, Jason Oppenheim and Rick Caruso co-hosted a Mahan meet-and-greet at Oppenheim’s WeHo office. Press wasn’t allowed, but we heard district attorney Nathan Hochman was there, and so were residential and commercial brokers.