The media mogul has stepped back from the forefront of his empire, but there’s likely more to come — like a step to cement power for his son Lachlan.

The final rules issued Friday, which aim to prevent chip makers from using new U.S. subsidies to benefit China, take into account the industry’s perspective.

The wife of billionaire John Paulson is accusing him of keeping $10 million hidden from her in a Puerto Rican condo. 

In one of the ugliest real estate divorces in recent memory, Jenica Paulson filed an updated complaint in state court in Manhattan on Wednesday, accusing John of improperly enriching himself through the condo purchase, according to Bloomberg. The complaint is the latest salvo in a divorce that led Jenica to file a lawsuit in July, seeking at least $1 billion in damages.

In 2020, John agreed to buy an apartment at the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort in Puerto Rico for $5.6 million from a 2009 family trust, according to the complaint; John holds a stake in the resort. Today, however, that penthouse is worth $15 million, meaning John effectively took $10 million from a trust — of which the couple’s children are primary beneficiaries — and gave it to himself, the complaint alleges.

Furthermore, Jenica alleges John has failed to make payments on the Puerto Rico penthouse while racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding “hospitality charges.” John’s lawyer disputed the complaint, saying that all required payments have been made and there are no hospitality charges because John hasn’t closed on the apartment.

Jenica filed the updated complaint one day before the two sides were set to argue on John’s motion to throw out the lawsuit, a court date that has since been postponed. Jenica’s complaint came about after a separate lawsuit was filed against John by a longtime business partner in Puerto Rico.

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John Paulson is a billionaire hedge funder, making his fortune by betting against subprime mortgage bonds before the Great Recession. His net worth is $5.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Among the assets up for grabs in the contentious divorce are hundreds of millions worth of real estate. John filed for divorce in September 2021, but the couple doesn’t have a prenup, sparking a fight over a $110 million Palm Beach mansion, a $49 million ranch in Aspen, a $41 million home on Lake Agawan in Southampton and a $14.7 million townhouse on the Upper East Side.

— Holden Walter-Warner

The post John Paulson condo purchase scrutinized as bitter billionaire divorce rages appeared first on The Real Deal.

Shares of SL Green, New York City’s biggest office landlord, are performing better than the rest of the sector. But that hasn’t stopped investors from selling its stocks short.
A share selloff affecting real estate investment trusts hit the sector Thursday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates level.
REIT shares are down roughly 19% this year, while SL Green’s are up by 11%. But the Fed’s announcement led SL Green to lose ground against its market competition, Bloomberg reported.
The office landlord’s share price declined by 9.7% amid yesterday’s selloff, but roughly 26% of its shares on the market — around $688M — were sold short,…

A major downtown Chicago office tower has changed hands for the first time in over a year, hinting at a possible recovery for an office sector that’s still reeling from the pandemic while highlighting how much Loop office buildings have depreciated recently.

Oregon-based investor Menashe Properties paid nearly $45 million for the 623,000-square-foot building at 230 West Monroe Street, a staggeringly low amount given that the property last traded for $122 million in 2014, when Florida-based Accesso Partners bought it, Crain’s reported. Eastdil Secured brokers Bryan Rosenberg and David Caprile helped arrange the sale.

The sale price is nearly half the amount of Morgan Stanley’s $87.7 million loan that it provided Accesso in 2019 as part of a refinancing deal.

The building’s roughly 65 percent drop in value since 2014 further demonstrates the beleaguered state of Chicago’s office market. Remote work trends continue to present challenges, as do company layoffs and gobs of available sublease space in office towers. Hiked interest rates and a tight lending climate have made it even tougher for landlords to stay afloat, as the city’s office vacancy rate reached new heights last quarter.

Menashe’s purchase does have a silver lining, though. It’s the first time a large Loop-area office property has traded since July 2022, when Google bought the James R. Thompson Center for $105 million.

Plus, the sale shows some of the advantages of being able to buy a large property at a steep discount. The investor was able to pay cash for 230 West Monrose and avoided the headache of taking out a loan amid a rising interest rate climate. The firm can also aggressively pursue tenants as a result of spending a relatively small amount.

“We’re open for business,” company CEO Jordan Menashe told the outlet. He added that while many investors are steering clear of office acquisitions, “we are going to benefit from being a first mover.”

“Anybody that can make decisions and take care of tenants and customers is in a pretty good position right now,” he told the publication.

The 29-story building has an occupancy rate of 60 percent, down from the citywide average of roughly 77 percent. By 2026, 15 percent of its rentable space will have leases expire, the outlet reported.

Menashe plans to perform several renovations, such as upgrading the lobby, building move-in ready offices and bringing a “younger vibe” to the site.

— Quinn Donoghue

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The post Menashe drops $45M in cash for discounted Loop office tower  appeared first on The Real Deal.

The bidding war for Yellow Corp.’s highly sought-after truck terminals has ended with Estes Express Lines’ stalking horse offer winning big.
Estes’ $1.525B bid, offered last week, bested Old Dominion Freight Line’s $1.5B offer. The news came in a Thursday order filed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, FreightWaves reported. The court also approved Estes’ bid protections, including a $7.5M breakup fee and up to $1.6M in expense reimbursement.
“We are pleased to announce that we have been formally approved by the court as the real estate stalking horse bidder,” an Estes representative told FreightWaves. “We continue to believe our transaction is…

The regular talks are intended to give both countries a venue to resolve differences.

The Federal Reserve’s message of higher rates for a longer period of time has led investors to question their assumptions.

Multifamily starts dropped to an annual rate of 334,000 units in August, down 41% compared with the same month in 2022, according to the Census Bureau, and off 26.3% month-over-month. Single-family starts dropped 4.3% for the month, coming in at an annualized rate of 941,000 units, but edged up by 2.4% compared with a year ago.
Overall, residential starts were at an annualized rate of 1.28 million units in August, down 14.8% for the year, and 11.8% for the month, at their lowest level since the early pandemic in 2020, the bureau reported.
Despite the residential drop, construction spending was up in…

The Innovator of the Year honoree says she loves the pace of change in CRE. “Just when you’ve seen it all – there’s usually something new around every corner.”