Rockefeller Bidding Won by Goldman : Real estate: Group of investors will buy Manhattan landmark from bankrupt owners for $1.3 billion.
An investment group that includes the Wall Street firm Goldman, Sachs & Co. and David Rockefeller announced an agreement Tuesday to take control of Rockefeller Center.
The development allows the Rockefeller family to keep a stake in the Manhattan office complex that bears its name. It also closes the most recent chapter in a contentious bidding contest that included noted investor Sam Zell, Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.
Goldman’s group, which includes the family that controls Italian auto maker Fiat, won the bidding with a sweetened $306-million cash offer for Rockefeller Center Properties Inc., the center’s mortgage holder.
Also included in the deal is the assumption of about $830 million in Rockefeller Center Properties debt, placing the deal’s total value at $1.13 billion. Rockefeller Center Properties is slated to take control of the center from the two bankrupt partnerships that own it.
“This agreement, reached after months of negotiations with a variety of potential investors, maximizes value for shareholders,” Peter D. Linneman, chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, said in a statement.
The bid of $8 a share is about twice the price of Rockefeller Center Properties stock last May, when the mortgage holder began seeking financial partners, he added.
Rockefeller Center Properties shares were unchanged Tuesday at $7.50 each on the New York Stock Exchange. Acceptance of the Goldman-led deal was announced near the end of the trading day.
Whether others would come forward with additional bids for the center was unclear. Zell did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
In accepting the offer, Rockefeller Center Properties spurned a tentative agreement with a group led by Zell. The Chicago-based investor, backed by the likes of General Electric and Disney, actually made three separate bids to wrest control of the debt-laden property.
Goldman’s offer was also chosen over a proposal by Gotham Partners L.P., an investment fund with a sizable stake in Rockefeller Center Properties, to have shareholders retain full control by buying new shares of stock.
The two partnerships that own Rockefeller Center--80% owned by Mitsubishi Estate Co. and 20% by Rockefeller family trusts--filed for bankruptcy protection in May.
The owners announced an agreement in September to hand over the property to Rockefeller Center Properties, which has cash problems of its own.
The first Zell bid, which the mortgage holder accepted in principal--a $250-million cash infusion for a 50% stake--was almost immediately threatened by rival offers from Goldman and Gotham.
The Goldman group initially offered $297 million, or $7.75 a share, for Rockefeller Center Properties, whose source of income is the center’s $1.3-billion mortgage.
