Yipit CEO Vinicius Vacanti

“I felt like in finance, the playbook was already written, and it was my job to execute,” said Vinicius Vacanti, co-founder and chief executive officer of Yipit, a startup that delivers personalized daily deals aggregated from other services. “Someone had done it before I did, and someone was going to do it after. In a startup, there’s no playbook. You’re making it up as you go along.”

It was Wednesday night at General Assembly, and 30 bankers, mostly young, mostly male, mostly dressed in shirts and slacks and keeping one eye trained on their mobile devices, had turned out to listen to founders from New York’s startup scene talk about their transitions from Wall Street to Silicon Alley. It was a hot ticket.

Call it a function of lower pay at financial firms amid lower profits and increased regulation, call it the Facebook Effect, in which the best-and-the-brightest dream of becoming the next Zuckerberg or Pincus—or changing in cultural attitudes, though we've yet to meet a young banker who said that the Occupy movement influenced them personally. Call it what you want, but if the 70 names on the waiting list for last night's event is any indication, the startup world is increasingly appealing the to smart, ambitious 20-somethings who chart a path that starts at investment banking.

“People are seeing all of these small startups blowing up and they want to be a part of the next big thing,” said Sameer Syed, a former JPMorgan analyst who helped organize the Wednesday night session. “In finance, you’re not building a product, maybe you’re funding the development of the economy, but you’re not building anything tangible. People want to be a part of that.”

The event was born when Mr. Syed sat down with Matt Minoff, a former Allen & Co. banker and the founder of digital advertising startup Selectable Media. Mr. Syed knew he wanted to leave banking for the tech world, but didn't know how to go about it.

“The difficulty I was having was that startups didn’t understand my background,” he said. “They viewed me as a finance function, someone who can do payrolls or budgets. Matt told me, ‘These are your skills, this is what startups need, this is how to spin yourself.’ I said, ‘This was so useful, I need to get access to more people like you. There are a lot of people like me who want to get out of finance but don’t know how.’ He said, ‘Why don’t we put something together?’”

To that end, Wednesday night's session was one part practical advice, one part inspiration. The startup world provides the chance for self-determination, said Mr. Minoff, and freedom from some managing directors' late-night demands; it's a place where people sometimes work with their shoes off and say crazy things, said Jordy Leiser, who left JPMorgan to found STELLAService, which rates customer service at online shopping sites; it offers the chance to fail gloriously, said Mr. Vacanti, whose decision to leave Blackstone started with a question.

"What if I wake up at 40 and feel like I never failed at anything—would I think, 'Maybe I didn't set the bar high enough?'" he said. "In a startup, you’re constantly failing, and it's an awesome experience. You celebrate in a different way when you've also faced defeat."

Which isn't to say it's all fun and games. Leaving Wall Street means saying goodbye to the fancy dinners, and giving up a badge of honor in the adult world. "It's a pride of position," said Ben McKean, founder of Savored, which helps restaurants provide variable pricing based on demand for reservations at given times. "I earned a top spot at Merrill. Now all of a sudden, people are asking what you do, and you say, 'I'm starting a company and I can't even describe it because it's too early.'"

Meanwhile, tech companies are likely to find young bankers attractive for the same reason Wall Street firms do. "It's going to be your job to hustle," said Mr. Leiser. "There have been times where I've literally run to the office because there was something I had to do."

There was more specific advice. Consider working at an existing startup for a couple of years before launching your own project, all agreed: “If you go out and start something on your own, it might take 24 months before you even know what you’re doing,” said Mr. Minoff.

Don't pitch yourself as a finance or business development guy, but as an operations whiz. “You’re extremely smart, crazy hardworking, and very nimble—that's your pitch,” Mr. Vacanti said."Our companies are operational nightmares. There should be plenty of roles for you."

Data analysis is another promising route, said Mr. McKean, who hired a finance type who cold emailed him from business school. "Send me your database," the woman said. "You'll be amazed by what I find."

If you don't start your own company, don't waste money on outside developers or legal advice, and don't treat your idea like a state secret. "Non-disclosures will get you laughed at," one of the panelists said.

Pressures and lean years aside, none of the founders on the panel expressed lingering yearning for the Wall Street world.

“How many people do you know who left finance for a startup, then went back?” Mr. Vacanti asked.

None, no one, zero, they answered.

The ongoing controversy over a Morgan Stanley research analyst who cut his earnings guidance for Facebook in the days ahead of the company's IPO is really about...Henry Blodget?

That's right. In the days leading up to Facebook's IPO, a Morgan Stanley tech analyst cut revenue guidance for the company, which would have been routine, except—Morgan Stanley was the lead underwriter on the offering, and the research was available to the investment bank's institution clients, but not retail investors.

Outrage ensued, and that's where Mr. Blodget came in—not just because Mr. Blodget was among the most outraged.

Morgan Stanley's explanation was that so-called Chinese walls separated the bankers who underwrote the offering from those who provide sell-side investment advice. And those Chinese walls were built after the tech bubble burst to protect investors from banking analysts. If only we knew an infamous banking analyst...

"I was one of the top-ranked Wall Street Internet analysts during the dotcom bubble," Mr. Blodget wrote in his column today.

The top analysts were said to have to "wear two hats," banker and analyst, and have to help investors while also maintaining great relationships with companies. At some firms, analysts were even paid directly for banking deals, though that wasn't the case at my firm (Merrill Lynch).

...

After the market crashed, a new New York Attorney General named Eliot Spitzerdecided to look into the research-banking conflict. And, thanks to my visibility, he started with me.

...

After extending his investigation to many other firms, Spitzer forced an industry-wide settlement in which the involvement of research analysts in IPOs was pared back and the "Chinese Wall" between research and banking was strengthened.

...

As one can see from the accompanying chart, Midtown has seen the biggest rise over the past year. This is due to a couple of properties added to the "under construction/expected-soon category"—250 West 55th Street (which is officially back on that list after it was technically considered “postponed” a year ago) and 1045 Avenue of the Americas (which is on the cusp of a construction start).

Hudson Yards (Related) and Manhattan West (Brookfield) have yet to technically make our list because of the indecisiveness on the timing of these projects. Other Midtown additions include 4 Times Square, where there could be some 700,000 square feet available when Condé Nast vacates in 2014, and 114 West 47th Street, where Bank of America will be giving up approximately 300,000 square feet at its lease expiration in 2014.

Despite new construction underway in Midtown South (51 Astor Place with the entire 430,000 square feet available), this hot submarket has seen its big blocks of availability ease substantially, falling to 12 today from 19 just two years ago.

Downtown has seen the opposite effect, with its large blocks rising to 24 from 17 two years ago. Included in the new numbers are 2 and 4 World Financial Center, where it was expected though not assured as recently as a year ago that BofA/Merrill Lynch would be giving up substantial space. Today, those super blocks are first and third (by size) on the total Manhattan list with only 1 World Trade Center separating the two.

In the near-term, don’t be surprised to see a few additions in Midtown and Midtown South (new construction and tenants giving up space) before the numbers start to ease on a further improving economy later in the year.

Robert Sammons, Cassidy Turley

The bank had been in discussions to extend its occupancy at the building for months. On Monday, insiders with direct knowledge of the deal and a spokeswoman for the bank, confirmed that the contracted lease had been signed on Friday morning.

114 West 47th Street (Courtesy Property Shark)

The deal is the second ancillary location to the bank’s New York City headquarters at One Bryant Park here it has significantly decreased the size of its office footprint.

According to several sources familiar with 114 West 47th Street, Bank of America in recent years has leased virtually all of the building’s roughly 660,000 square feet of space. Though Bank of America wouldn’t confirm how much space it has at the 20-story midtown building, which sits nearby to One Bryant Park along Sixth Avenue, the lease renewal would appear to be a substantial reduction in space it has at the location.

The deal follows a downsizing in Lower Manhattan in recent months. The bank inherited about three million square feet at the World Financial Center when it purchased Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis in 2008. Merrill’s space was set to expire in 2013 and there was widespread speculation in the real estate industry how much the bank would keep. Last summer, Bank of America ended up renewing only a fraction of the square footage Merrill had there, about 750,000 square feet.

The Durst Organization owns 114 West 47th Street. For a time last year, there was speculation among real estate brokers whether Bank of America could relocate from 114 West 47th Street, including rumors that the bank could take space at Four Times Square, which abuts One Bryant Park. Conde Nast, Four Times Square’s biggest tenant, is relocating from that property to One World Trade Center. The Durst Organization owns Four Times Square and developed One Bryant Park with Bank of America as its anchor tenant there. The landlord also purchased a $100 million stake in One World Trade Center, an investment that was viewed by many real estate observers as a facilitating factor in Conde Nast’s move to that tower.

Lately though Bank of America has suffered setbacks that have appeared to preclude bold real estate commitments. Last summer, the bank paid out $8.5 billion to settle claims from investors that lost money on mortgage backed securities during the downturn.

Cushman & Wakefield represented Bank of America in the deal. The Durst Organization is represented at the property by an in house team of leasing executives. Neither could be reached for comment by press time.

The firm occupies 375,000 square feet on several floors at the property, which is owned by the bank JP Morgan Chase. Rents in the deal were not available by press time. The lease is a change in plans for the company.

1 Chase Manhattan Plaza. (Courtesy Property Shark)

For months, Milbank had been circulating around the market, apparently intent on moving from its current location. More recently, the firm had zeroed in on the World Financial Center, a multi-million-square-foot office complex west of the World Trade Center.

A broker at a major real estate firm told The Commercial Observer yesterday that Brookfield Properties, the owner of the World Financial Center, had seemed confident it would sign a lease with Milbank to take some of the hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacancy it has at the property. On floorplans of the four-building complex that Brookfield showed to brokers in marketing presentations, this source said, the company had darkened a roughly 300,000-square-foot area to show that the space was spoken for.

Milbank’s renewal deal is another tough twist for Brookfield.

Over the summer, the Japanese financial firm Nomura signed a deal to uproot more than 500,000 square feet at Two World Financial Center to about 900,000 square feet at Worldwide Plaza in midtown. The deal was especially disappointing because of the close nature of the contest between Brookfield and the owners of Worldwide Plaza, an investment partnership led by the real estate firm George Comfort & Sons. Only after a months-long period of jockeying between the two landlords did George Comfort appear to pull away with the deal, which was one of the year’s biggest.

Another sizeable World Financial Center tenant, the accounting firm Deloitte, also reached an agreement to leave. Last December, Deloitte signed a lease to take about 500,000 square feet at 30 Rockefeller Center. Deloitte, too, had appeared on the cusp of signing with Brookfield before abruptly reconsidering.

Bank of America meanwhile, whose subsidiary Merrill Lynch is the World Financial Center’s biggest tenant, recently announced that it would renew 767,000 square feet of the space it has there. Although the deal is sizeable, it’s only a fraction of the bank’s previous footprint. According to published reports, Merrill had about 4.6 million square feet in the 8 million square foot complex.

Many brokers say that, despite its recent string of hard luck, the World Financial Center is among downtown’s best office locations and that the complex will attract takers, especially if the office market continues to improve.

Dale Schlather, an executive at Cushman & Wakefield represents Milbank. Neither Schlather nor a spokeswoman from Milbank would comment. Brookfield and JP Morgan Chase also did not return calls by press time.

Dan Geiger, Staff Writer, is reachable at Dgeiger@Observer.com

Designed by Emery Roth, 1633 Broadway, at the corner of Broadway and 50th Street, is one of the 10 largest and most spectacular office buildings in the city and home to marquee tenants such as Time Warner and Allianz Global Investors.

This is one of the largest office building deals since the investment sales market virtually stalled in 2008. In 2011, the only remotely comparable sale was at 11 Madison Avenue, where a stake traded for $469.44 million, according to Massey Knakal. 

Paramount has done more than its part throughout the recession, buying a Deutsche Bank-owned 700,000-square-foot tower at 31 West 52nd Street for more than $500 million, and, in partnership with Sherwood Equities, a 320,000-square-foot Class B office building at 440 Ninth Avenue from SL Green for $160 million. But this purchase is sure to add an extra shine to the New York City-based company's portfolio. 

Eastdil Secured represented the seller in the transaction, but brokers could not be reached for comment. 

lkusisto@observer.com 

In a late-November Forbes interview, Mr. Assange promised a leak containing tens of thousands of documents that would reveal a major U.S. bank operating in an "ecosystem of corruption." More recently, Mr. Assange said that the dump contained enough information to force the resignation of a bank CEO.

Speculation swirls that the data in question belonged to a former executive of Merrill Lynch, which merged with Bank of America in 2008. In response, BofA has reportedly assembled a "legal SWAT team" in anticipation of such a disclosure, according to Fox Business' Charlie Gasparino.

The quesiton is, what, if anything, can such a SWAT team do? Perhaps the only clear legal  avenue for BofA -- or any other bank in such a situation -- will require the plaintiff to prove Wikileaks conspired with whoever leaked the documents, Joe DeMarco, former cybercrime prosecutor for New York's Southern District, told The Observer in an email. Such a revelation would allow a bank to bring criminal charges for release of classified information or computer hacking, or civil action for interfering with a non-disclosure contract.

"If [Wikileaks is] complicit in a criminal act ... you could be charged as a co-conspirator in the act itself or as an aider and abbettor," said John Curran, former Deputy General Counsel for National Security Affairs at the FBI.

Then comes the real challenge. Even if it were proven that Wikileaks was actively encouraging a leaker, legal action against the organization itself would be fraught with international hurdles, Mr. DeMarco wrote. Although it may well be technically possible to sue Wikileaks and win, he said, "Not all foreign countries will give effect to a U.S. judgment in favor of a plaintiff." Plus, enforcement of any claims against Wikileaks would be complicated; the organization's mirror sites are hosted in multiple countries. And the computer servers themselves are difficult to locate, further complicating matters, Mr. DeMarco pointed out.

If Wikileaks was simply a passive recipient of the information, the bank will probably have little redress, thanks to the First Amendment. As The New York Times points out, no third party to secret documents has ever been successfully prosecuted for receiving and publishing information. This inconvenience has been frustrating U.S. prosecutors as they attempted to build a case against Mr. Assange for publishing secret State Department cables.

So if Wikileaks can't be beaten in court, a bank's best bet may be to win in the court of public opinion, a strategy Bank of America is clearly already attempting. That's what the U.S. government has been trying to do. Following the outfit's publication of secret U.S. State Department cables, Vice President Joe Biden called Mr. Assange a "high-tech terrorist," and Secretary of State Clinton has likened the disclosure to an attack on America and a threat to the international community. Perhaps it'd be worth it for a bank to try to brand Mr. Assange as an anticapitalist subversive bent on undermining a fragile U.S. economic recovery.

Given his cavalier attitude about the impending data release -- "It could take down a bank or two," he says -- that shouldn't be too hard.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

Fakahany fronted White and restaurateur Chris Cannon around $6 million to help open Marea. He also helped the pair secure a $2.5 million loan to import terra-cotta floor tiles, farmhouse beams on the ceiling, a cast-iron front door and a gelato case from Italy for Osteria Morini, another Italian venture set to open in SoHo this fall.

Fakahany's apparently planning on duplicating the Osteria Morini model—a task he doesn't see as too difficult: "We know now where to get the beams, the bricks, how to go to the antique markets." He aims to help White fulfill his potential as a chef, and seems prepared to shell out additional money to do so.

The real estate folks at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch are finally making some decisions (though not the decision we’ve all been waiting for).

Bank of America has renewed its lease for 114,000 square feet at 717 Fifth Avenue. The news was first reported Monday on Observer.com.

The former Merrill sales office will remain at the slinky skyscraper, once owned by Sam Zell's Equity Office and now controlled by Stephen Schwarzman’s Blackstone, until at least 2014. Taking rents on the lease were not revealed, but 717 Fifth, during the boom, commanded rents of well over $100 a square foot. Given the economy and the tenants’ market Manhattan has become, it’s likely this lease was for much less.

“Essentially, that’s been the flagship New York store,” said Kelly Cishek, a spokeswoman for Bank of America. “We’ve been serving clients in that location in midtown for 20 years. We wanted to maintain our presence, maintain that history, and continue to serve our clients in midtown.”

Why the renewal for only five years? Ms. Cishek attributed it to the uncertainties inherent in the massive integration of Merrill Lynch into Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America. Good luck, y’all.

Peter Riguardi, president of New York operations at Jones Lang LaSalle, represented the bank in negotiations with Robert Alexander, chairman of CB Richard Ellis’ tristate region, who represented the landlord.

drubinstein@observer.com