UPDATED, 6:45 p.m. Jan. 26: Gabe Plotkin, the founder of investment management firm Melvin Capital Management and a major short-seller of GameStop, is the buyer of two adjacent properties in Miami Beach, The Real Deal has learned.
Plotkin paid $44 million for the waterfront homes at 6360 and 6342 North Bay Road, according to sources. Jean Simonian, who owns the watch store Westime, sold the mansion and adjacent house. The deal closed in late November and was recorded last week.
Plotkin founded New York-based Melvin Capital in 2014 with $925 million in seed money, according to a source. The fund now manages $13 billion. Its holdings include more than 405,000 shares of Amazon (worth nearly $1.3 billion on Monday), and about 20 million shares in Bath & Body Works owner L Brands (worth $600 million), according to Yahoo Finance. L Brands also owns a stake in Victoria’s Secret.
A spokesperson for Plotkin declined to comment. Melvin is known for taking significant short positions against several stocks, including GameStop, which has seen its shares rally nearly 700 percent this year- resulting in huge losses for Melvin. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel are investing $2.75 billion into Melvin, which has lost nearly 30 percent this year.
The 12,651-square-foot mansion at 6360 North Bay Road sold for $32 million. The nine-bedroom home, built in 2018, has nine bedrooms, twelve full bathrooms and four half bathrooms, according to property records. It includes a guesthouse, pool and dock with 112 feet of water frontage.
The four-bedroom, four-bathroom home next door, at 6342 North Bay Road, sold for $12 million. Originally built in 1935, the house, which sits on a 24,407-square-foot lot, was advertised as a teardown.
In Miami Beach, Plotkin joins a number of millionaire and billionaire buyers who have closed on properties in recent months. Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has been assembling land on Miami Beach’s Star Island, recently paying $25 million for 10 Star Island Drive.
Last month, the waterfront lot at 5860 North Bay Road, once home to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, sold to developer Jarrett Posner, founder and chairman of New York City-based BMC Investments, for $11 million. The same month, the CEO of AmeriSave Mortgage Corp. paid $8.2 million for a waterfront Miami Beach teardown next to his mansion on North Bay Road. And the CEO and president of a cosmetics and lotions manufacturer paid $10.7 million for a waterfront Palm Island mansion at 24 Palm Avenue.
This story was updated to reflect the latest events surrounding GameStop, which is one of Melvin Capital’s major short positions.