Shvo's $34M Exit, Anthropic's Expansion, East Bay Rent Record

As word got around that the partnership responsible for reviving the Transamerica Pyramid was beginning to crumble, the headlines focused heavily on Michael Shvo, the New York developer who teamed up with German financial institutions to purchase the San Francisco skyline’s centerpiece.

Local and national news organizations reported that the Germans, who stood to lose up to a billion dollars on their U.S. real estate portfolio that also included the Big Red office tower in Chicago, had grown frustrated and began questioning their relationship with Shvo. News then broke of the Transamerica Pyramid’s impending sale, estimated to be around $700 million, well-under the nearly billion-dollar investment the partners made in the property. It seemed like everyone on the seller side would lose.

Yet, as we reported earlier this week, while the Germans suffered significant losses, Shvo appears to have gotten his dough.

Yoda PLC, the Cyprus-based investment firm that bought the Transamerica Pyramid, spent $725 million to acquire the property: $691.6 million on the real estate, and a separate $34 million to Shvo. According to a release from Yoda PLC, Shvo’s pay package covered a brokerage fee for representing both sides in the sale, the fee for terminating his position as asset manager, and the cost to buy him out of his right-of-first-offer agreement.

Shvo did not respond to requests for comments on his lucrative exit.

Anthropic takes over more real estate

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence titan and OpenAI rival behind the Claude large language model, is a long way from its more modest beginnings in a 7,000 square-foot office in Jackson Square.

Earlier this year, the company announced it would lease all 466,000 square feet inside the tower at 300 Howard Street. Yet, it wasn’t enough. Earlier this week, news broke that the company would lease another 100,000 square feet right down the street, at 400 Howard Street.

The company seems to enjoy this stretch of the city’s Financial District. The new leases will replace Anthropic’s existing commitments at 500 and 505 Howard Street, which are set to expire in 2028.

The spillover begins

Last year, as San Francisco’s rents continued to rise, Bay Area developer Michael Ghielmetti told The Real Deal that the East Bay often lags 12-to-18 months behind the city’s real estate trends.

In March, Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville and Richmond showed its strongest rent growth since 2019, according to new numbers from global real estate services firm JLL. The average asking rent hit $2,490, an all-time high, according to JLL’s latest report, a year-over-year growth of 1.4 percent.

As renters look for a more affordable living, demand in the East Bay has surged and is beginning to outstrip supply. Developers only delivered 1,000 units in 2025, the lowest in a decade. As of the report, only 1,500 new homes were underway, a steep decline from 2019, when 10,000 new homes were added to the East Bay.

A luxury broker expands to a luxury market

Earlier this week, luxury real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman Realty announced it was expanding its satellite presence into Sonoma and Napa counties.

Broker duo Christine Krenos and Joseph Zichelle are leading the expansion, and expect $100 million in listings to come online this spring.
Michael Liebowitz, CEO of the firm, called the expansion a “strategic and highly anticipated step” for the brokerage to enter this “globally recognized luxury market.”