Just one month after Floyd Mayweather Jr. inked a record multifamily deal, the retired boxer is taking a big swing on a comeback by the office sector.
Mayweather invested in office landlord 601W Companies’ largest portfolio, a $10 billion collection of 18 buildings spanning 10 million square feet, according to a Mayweather spokesperson and Mark Karasick, a managing member of 601W.
Neither source would put a dollar figure to the deal, citing a confidentiality agreement. But a source said it is the former world champion’s “most significant” investment to date.
Mayweather previously invested over $100 million with office landlord SL Green, the source said. He has earned $1.1 billion in and out of the ring, including about $300 million from a single fight in 2015.
In October, the athlete-turned investor went into contract on a $402 million apartment portfolio owned by Black Spruce Management. The deal, which spans over 60 rental buildings, could end up being the city’s biggest this year.
Through the 601W investment, Mayweather will be an owner-partner in properties including Amazon-anchored 410 10th Avenue in Hudson Yards; the Aon Center and Old Post Office Building in Chicago; and Jersey City’s Harborside office complex — Mayweather’s favorite, according to the spokesperson.
Mayweather is betting on a post-pandemic office comeback and sees “tremendous upside” in the 601W portfolio given the landlord’s track record, the spokesperson said.
The firm, a trophy office owner with a redevelopment bent, made the bold move to expand its office footprint during Covid.
In late 2020 it paid $952 million for 410 10th Avenue, a century-old office building that seller SL Green had slated for redevelopment. The property boasted Amazon as an anchor tenant and, at the time, First Republic Bank as its second-largest with about one-third of the building.
But the bank collapsed in May 2023. In early 2024, Crain’s reported that occupancy at 410 10th Avenue had dropped to 65 percent and net cash flow was down 16 percent.
However, 601W has withstood the hit. The building is still raking in more than enough rent to cover monthly payments on a mortgage due in 2032, according to Morningstar.
In the past year, the landlord also picked up four Class-A office buildings comprising the Harborside complex in Jersey City for over $500 million. It recently scored a $65 million loan on one of the buildings that it bought for $85 million, signaling lender confidence in the New Jersey office market and 601W as a borrower.
The landlord hasn’t been immune to the refinancing challenges rattling much of the sector. But it has managed workouts.
Last year, 601W drummed up $21 million in fresh equity to extend the $310 million loan on Chicago’s One South Wacker Drive, then inked a lease expansion that nearly doubled the footprint of its largest tenant, Invenergy, at the tower.
It also locked down a three-year extension on the half a billion dollars in debt backed by the Aon Center even as a reappraisal — standard for buildings in special servicing — cut the property’s value nearly in half and below the loan balance.
Mayweather’s investment will go toward repositioning assets, Karasick said, and to new acquisitions. The landlord is eyeing distressed office deals in major cities, including Chicago and New York.
The undefeated boxer, meanwhile, remains bullish on the Big Apple.
“New York City is the center of the world,” Mayweather said in a statement. “A wise person once told me if you buy real estate in New York and you hold on to it over the years you will always make money and win.”
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