Jason Meister, a broker and vice president at commercial brokerage Avison Young, who represented both Joseph Sitt and Rubin Schron in their unsuccessful bids for the Empire State Building, compared the building’s initial public offering to Obamacare on television yesterday.
Meister claimed that the original investors in the iconic tower were misled into believing they would get greater returns if the building was taken public, similar to the false promises made by President Barack Obama about his healthcare plan, he told Fox News.
The Empire State Building was officially transferred to the nascent Empire State Realty Trust, a publicly-traded real estate investment trust, for $1.89 billion — substantially less than the $2 billion-and-up offered by Sitt and Schron — last month, as The Real Deal reported.
“[Investors] were told the exchange value in the REIT was going to be roughly $323,000 a unit,” Meister told Fox News in the video above. “It ends up that at $13 a share, these investors are getting roughly $223,000 [each]. That’s $100,000 less than what they were told they were going to get.”
Meister continued: “President Obama is guaranteeing that the American people are going to be able to keep their health insurance policies. Under Obamacare … what happens? Millions of Americans get cancellation policies. People don’t want to be misled.” [Fox News] – Hiten Samtani