The majority ownership of New York City's iconic Chrysler Building has been sold to the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, marking the second time in less than two months that a Middle Eastern fund took a major stake in a high-profile Manhattan office building.
Prudential Financial sold its 75 per cent stake in the New York City building to the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund on Tuesday, a source familiar with the transaction said.
Tishman Speyer, which manages and controls the building, held the other 25 per cent stake. A Tishman Speyer Properties spokesperson would not comment on whether they, too, had sold part or all of their interest in the building, located on 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue.
The fund paid about $800 million for Prudential's stake, another person familiar with the deal said. Prudential spokeswoman Theresa Miller declined to comment.
The sale of the building was motivated by timing restrictions in an investment fund Prudential has owned since 2002.
Prudential has been selling the fund's other high profile Manhattan office properties, including 666 Fifth Avenue and the Lipstick Building at 885 Third Ave., in the last year to close out the fund.
Manhattan's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science technically owns the land and the building and leases it to Tishman Speyer under a 150-year lease that started in 1998, according to a spokeswoman for Cooper Union - the only private, full
scholarship US college for architecture, art and engineering. Rent payments help fund the scholarships.
The Chrysler stake follows on the heels of another purchase by a United Arab Emirate buyer. Last month, Dubai-based Meraas Capital LLC, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Boston Properties Inc bought the General Motors building.
The Chrysler Building, an American Art Deco skyscraper, was designed by William Van Alen who was in a race in the 1920s and 1930s to build tallest building in the world, said Neal Bascomb, author of the book 'Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and Making of a City.'
The book chronicles the competition between Van Alen and his chief adversary, H. Craig Severance.