Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tishman Speyer, BlackRock turn properties over to creditors

The financially troubled owners of two massive apartment complexes that sold for a record US$5.4 billion a few years ago said yesterday that they are turning them over to their creditors.

The joint venture ownership led by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty couldn’t make a US$16 million loan payment earlier this month for the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments in Manhattan.

Over the last few days it became clear that the only viable alternative to bankruptcy would be to transfer to lenders control and operation of the 110 buildings and 11,000 apartments overlooking the East River, partnership spokesman Bud Perrone said.

‘We make this decision as we feel a battle over the property or a contested bankruptcy proceeding is not in the long-term interest of the property, its residents, our partnership or the city,’ Mr Perrone said.

It hadn’t been determined when the ownership transfer would take place and who specifically the new owners would be, he said.

The group bought the complexes, which have about 25,000 tenants, in 2006, in America’s largest residential real estate deal. Since then, the city’s housing market has cooled considerably.

The partnership had been trying to restructure its debt.

A report in The Wall Street Journal said that earlier this month, Gramercy Capital Corp, the most junior lender in the 2006 purchase of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, asked that co-owner Tishman Speyer be replaced as manager of the huge Manhattan apartment complexes.

Tishman Speyer and BlackRock Realty Advisors formed joint venture PCV ST to buy the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village in 2006.

Source: Business Times, 26 Jan 2010

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