Hedge funder Donald Sussman sells waterfront Fort Lauderdale lot for $17M

Sussman more than doubled his initial investment

2401 Laguna Drive, Fort Lauderdale with Paloma Partners' Donald Sussman (Google Maps, Paloma Partners)
2401 Laguna Drive, Fort Lauderdale with Paloma Partners' Donald Sussman (Google Maps, Paloma Partners)

Hedge funder Donald Sussman sold a waterfront lot in Fort Lauderdale for $17 million to a Texas-based aerospace executive in an off-market deal.

The Laguna Property Trust sold the 0.7-acre lot at 2401 Laguna Drive to Arrowhead Hillcountry Investments, a Texas LLC managed by Edward J. Chalupa, records show. Chalupa is the president of Advanced Integration Technology, a Plano, Texas-headquartered aerospace company.

Sussman is founder and chief investment officer of Paloma Partners, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut. Paloma operates a number of funds catering mostly to institutional investors. He is also the ex-husband of billionaire Laurie Tisch, the daughter of Loews Corporation co-founder and namesake of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His daughter Emily Tisch Sussman is a prominent political strategist for the Democratic party.

Sussman also sits on the board of directors for the Center for American Progress.

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The Paloma boss bought the Fort Lauderdale property for $8 million in 2014, according to property records. It sits on a corner lot in the Harbor Beach neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale.

The property has been listed on-and-off since 2016, with the asking price steadily rising from the initial $9.9 million to the $14 million last listed in March, according to the MLS. A previous listing for the property shows it has 390 feet of water frontage with a newly built dock.

Sussman also owns a 1.4-acre estate he bought from Florida’s fallen foreclosure king David Stern for $27.5 million in 2015. It held the price record for Broward County home sales until this past July, when a Harbor Beach estate set the record at $28.5 million – only to be broken in short succession by a spec estate that sold for $32.5 million in August.

Demand for waterfront property has sent prices soaring in Fort Lauderdale and across South Florida. In July, a California restaurant owner bought a waterfront mansion for $13 million that had last sold for $7.5 million the year prior.