Bilgili reignites feud with Shvo over Aman Residences investment

Turkish businessman claims Shvo diluted his ownership in condo project

Serdar Bilgili Sues Michael Shvo over Aman residences

Serdar Bilgili, Michael Shvo and the Aman residences at 730 Fifth Avenue (Illustration by Kevin Rebong; Sergar Bilgili, Aman)

Rich Bockmann

Jun 27, 2024, 8:00 AM

Serdar Bilgili is butting heads with Michael Shvo again, this time over their joint investment in the condo conversion of the Crown Building.

Bilgili, the wealthy Turkish businessman whom Shvo had previously referred to as his “best friend,” claims the controversial broker-turned-developer diluted his stake in Vlad Doronin’s Aman-branded condo project at 730 Fifth Avenue.

Bilgili, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan state Supreme Court, said that in 2015 he acquired a one-third interest in the Shvo-controlled LLC invested in the property. That LLC owned 10 percent of the project, making Bilgili’s interest represent a 3.33 percent stake in the overall development.

The trouble started in early 2016 when the project issued Shvo’s vehicle a pair of capital calls totaling $2.3 million. Bilgili said he got a request to pay his one-third portion — about $772,000 — directly to Shvo.

He claims that after making the payments, he learned in March 2024 that Shvo allegedly paid about $990,000 of the $2.3 million call, leaving a shortfall of about $1.3 million.

Shvo allegedly never revealed the shortfall, or that it had diluted both of their stakes.

“In its November 2016 letter conveying the second capital call, [the Shvo LLC] wrote that the entirety of the funds requested as part of the call ‘were and will be used for the interest payments and monthly operations for development costs of the project,’” Bilgili’s attorneys wrote in their complaint. “It turns out these representations were false.”

But it didn’t stop there.

Bilgili claims that Shvo failed to inform him that another investor had come into the deal, further pushing down their ownership. As late as May 2021, he alleges, Shvo attested that their joint LLC still held its 10 percent stake in the project.

But Bilgili claims he learned that another investor came in and put about $300 million into the project, pushing down his and Shvo’s shared 10 percent all the way down to 1.78 percent.

Bilgili is suing for $3.1 million in damages. A spokesperson for Shvo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bilgili and Shvo had previously teamed up on a multi-billion dollar office-buying spree, though the relationship flamed out when Bilgili accused Shvo of cutting him out of deals.

Shvo has since struggled with a number of those properties, and Bilgili went on to work with Bizzi & Partners.

The Aman project has racked up an impressive list of deals. In 2022, an LLC tied to a Swiss money manager paid $76 million for a full-floor unit in the building.

Earlier this year Hong Kong-based private equity executive Terence Chan paid $62 million for a 24th-floor apartment, and an LLC connected to financial executive Tom van Loben Sels, a tax consultant who does work for Meta and Facebook, paid $50.6 million for a unit.

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