Florida Pension Lost $250 Million on New York's Stuyvesant Town Apartments

[marmar]

Florida Lost $250 Million on New York’s Stuyvesant Apartments
By Jerry Hart


Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Florida’s pension lost $250 million it invested in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan’s largest rental-apartment complex, the fund’s trustees were told.

“We are carrying that investment at zero because the market softened dramatically,” Ash Williams, executive director of the State Board of Administration, which oversees $121.9 billion of pension and other assets, told a meeting in Tallahassee today.

The SBA bought in 2007 its share of a limited partnership run by Tishman Speyer Properties LP and Blackrock Inc., owners of the property, said Williams, who was hired in October 2008.

Tishman and Blackrock acquired the 80-acre, 11,200-unit Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper complex for $5.4 billion in 2006 at what Williams called “the top of the market.” Their plan to convert 1,600 rent-stabilized units to market rates as residents vacated was stymied by rising unemployment during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.

“Rents are not going up like they normally would, landlords are making concessions like free rent and people have not moved out at the rate anticipated,” said Williams, who came to the SBA after nine years as a managing director at Fir Tree Partners, a New York hedge fund. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMJ6yR9lHQQM

[aquart]

1. They wanted to make a profit on Stuyvesant Town?

Any chance of Tishman Speyer and Blackrock taking the hit hard?