By Carl Gaines 2/29/12 3:53pm

Financing

900 Third Avenue. (Courtesy Property Shark)

Paramount to Acquire Stake in 900 Third Avenue

Paramount Group is the buyer set to acquire a 49 percent stake in 900 Third Avenue from Investa Office Fund, sources told The Commercial Observer. That stake was IOF’s final US property. The sale is set to close in late March 2012 and was announced in mid-February with a sale agreement of $172.7 million, though IOF didn’t disclose the buyer at that time.

“The sale of IOF’s interest in the New York asset will complete the fund’s exit from the US market in line with our stated strategy, at an overall premium of 9.4 percent to June book value,” IOF Fund Manager Toby Phelps said in a prepared statement. Read More

By Carl Gaines 2/27/12 1:00pm

Financing

dreamworks

Starwood, Blackstone Partner to Save Office Complex

Greenwich, Connecticut-based Starwood Capital has brought in Blackstone as a partner to save its investment in the 1.7-million-square-foot Pacific Shores Center office complex in Redwood City, Calif. The partners are now looking for a $275 million mortgage to get rid of the property’s overdue debt. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 6/08/11 11:55am

Trading Spaces

620 Sixth Avenue.

Bed Bath & Beyond Building on the Block; Could Fetch $500 M., Sources Say

Hot on the heels of RXR Realty’s purchase of the Starrett-Lehigh Building for $900 million and the sale of 111 Eighth Avenue to Google for $1.8 billion, Bed Bath & Beyond’s building is on the block.

A partnership of Joseph Chetrit and Yair Levy, spearheaded by Charles Dayan from Bonjour Capital, bought the building for $289.8 million in 2005, according to city records. But with the trendy Chelsea office market enjoying a boom, driven in no small part by the tech bubble, the building could sell for around $500 million, according to some sources. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/08/11 11:44am

Interesting Interest

69_east_82nd

This Is Why We're Journalists: About That Blockbuster Ben Lambert Deal

Yesterday, we trumpeted the killer sale Eastdil Secured’s Benjamin Lambert pulled off on his Upper East Side townhouse. He bought the place for somewhere in the mid-six figures in 1978, and just sold it for $10.5 million. Reader Richard S. Zimmerman, a partner at accounting firm Berdon LLP, points out that our math is a little off. Or a lot:

Your interest calculation on the Lambert sale is off by a large factor. Assuming Lambert had 100% financing in 1978 and purchased the house for $300K and he sold in 2011 at $10.4 M (minus the broker at 5% = $9.88M) his rate of return would be a more modest 10.5% per year not 2,000%.

Having foolishly believed the pen mightier than the calculator, we asked Mr. Zimmerman for further explanation, and he provided another handy—and telling!—example. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 4/18/11 10:53pm

Big Deals

Stake Sale a Big-Time Bellwether on Madison

A stake in Ralph Lauren’s chichi emerald headquarters is up for grabs.

A 49 percent interest in 650 Madison Avenue, a trophy office tower just steps from the GM Building, is about to be put on the market, multiple industry sources told The Observer. The 500,000-square-foot building is valued at around $950 million, a source Read More