1. Equity Office Properties
A number of buyers ended up suffering devastating losses from those EOP deals, which were highly levered and, purchased at the height of the market, lost significant value during the recession. Blackstone, on the other hand, is understood to have tripled its initial investment as it sold off additional EOP assets in the ensuing years.
2. Hilton Hotels
Blackstone wrote down the investment, which had been 80 percent leveraged, invested additional capital, increased the number of rooms and restructured the hotel company’s debt. In 2013, the firm took Hilton public again. Blackstone completed its exit this year and realized a total of $14 billion, its most profitable private equity real estate deal to date.
3. Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village
The biggest real estate deal in American history at the time, the default brought giant losses to the investors backing the deal, including GIC and the Church of England. During Tishman Speyer and BlackRock’s three-year ownership, it lost approximately 65 percent of its value and was subsequently handed over to creditors. In 2015, the complex was bought in a $5.3 billion deal by a joint venture between Blackstone and Ivanhoé Cambridge.
4. GGP
The investment helped to bring GGP out of bankruptcy protection and contributed to the stellar performance of the club vehicle, helping pave the way for Brookfield to raise its first global real estate fund, Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners I. In March, Brookfield Property Partners, Brookfield’s publicly listed real estate arm, agreed to acquire the remaining shares of GGP it did not already own.
5. Coeur Défense
Lehman also arranged and underwrote a €1.63 billion senior loan to finance it, syndicated half to Goldman Sachs, provided bridge equity, securitized the loan with Goldman and advised on the hedging. It would prove a costly exposure. In 2014, Lone Star gained ownership of the complex, which had been stuck in the defaulted commercial mortgage-backed securities, for €1.3 billion, an approximately 40 percent discount.
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6. Ciudad Financiera
In 2010, Robert Tchenguiz, backed by sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, bought junior debt and Quinlan’s equity and has been battling Maud for control through the Spanish courts since 2011. Loan interest has increased the amount payable to €2.7 billion but the campus is still understood to be on the brink of a record-setting sale.
7. Citi Tower
8. Pacific Century Place, Japan
But when the global economic downturn reached Tokyo, DaVinci defaulted on its loan and senior lender Shinsei Bank seized the building. Ultimately, Secured Capital Japan (now PAG Real Estate) acquired the central Tokyo office reportedly for ¥140 billion in December 2009. DaVinci ended up acquired by Fortress Investment Group, after the New York group assumed responsibility for $220 million of its debt in 2010.
9. Simplex Investment Advisors
The purchase was made at a time of soaring property prices, but the ensuing collapse forced Goldman Sachs to sell its 50 percent stake in Simplex at a considerable discount to Aetos in 2011. According to reports, the US bank received just ¥10 billion from Aetos.
10. ANA Hotels
In April 2010, the firm missed its loan payments on the portfolio and got an extension until September. At the same time, it was telling investors the fund was set to lose $5.4 billion in equity due to bad investments, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Thus began the exit process. Four assets were sold to the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and four others to Japanese hotel-operator Hoshino Resort.