Bank of America buying Countrywide
Bank of America Corp. announced that it will buy Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest home mortgage lender, for $4 billion in stock. A recent surge in defaults and foreclosures had caused Countrywide’s stock to plummet. In August, Bank of America bought $2 billion of preferred shares convertible into a stake of about 16 percent in the lender. Countrywide’s default problems later worsened, and observers wondered if the lender would be forced to declare bankruptcy. The new company will do business with nearly one out of every two U.S. households.
Cresa Partners merges with Whitman Realty
Cresa Partners, one of the nation’s largest tenant representation firms, has entered an agreement to acquire Melville, N.Y.-based Whitman Realty Group Inc. Whitman Realty, one of the largest tenant representatives on Long Island, operated a partnership for several years with Newmark & Co. Real Estate, offering a full-service brokerage to the commercial market in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Goldman, BRP to build in Harlem, Bed-Stuy
Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group and BRP Development Corp. have signed a joint venture to spend $20 million on three mixed-income housing projects in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. More than 200 condos and rental units and 16,000 square feet of retail and community space are planned. The development costs are expected to total approximately $80 million.
Sale of NJ-based lender collapses
New Jersey-based PHH, one of the largest originators of residential home loans, announced that its planned $1.8 billion sale to General Electric and the Blackstone Group has fallen through. JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers slashed financing for the sale, and PHH said Blackstone was unable to find alternative financing. Blackstone was reportedly unable to convince lenders that PHH was still worth as much as it was in March 2007, before the mortgage meltdown.