| Subject: MetLife Sells Towers To Group of Investors |
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Date Posted: 05:31:10 12/26/02 Thu
MetLife Sells Towers To Group of Investors
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The Associated Press; Mark Harrington; Bloomberg News
December 26, 2002
MetLife Inc. sold two office towers in Manhattan and Chicago for $258 million to a group of New York investors including Joe Nakash, Lloyd Goldman and Jeffrey Feil.
The buildings are the historical 38-story Fred F. French building on Fifth Avenue and 45th Street and the 37-story tower at 10 S. LaSalle Street in Chicago, known as the Otis Building, the companies said. The art-deco style French tower was constructed in 1926, while the Otis Building dates from 1910 and is the oldest elevator building in Chicago.
MetLife is selling about $1.7 billion of real estate as part of a plan to raise capital and protect its credit ratings. The biggest U.S. life insurer expects to report $500 million of capital gains by unloading about 20 properties, and book most of those gains this year, MetLife's head of real estate investments Leland Launer said earlier this month. - Bloomberg News
Newspaper Sold for $5 Million
The New York Press, a free Manhattan-based weekly newspaper with a conservative bent, was sold Tuesday to a group of investors for an estimated $5 million.
The new owners, the New York Press LLC, have already shaken up top management, including editor John Strausbaugh. He was replaced by former managing editor Lisa Kearns, who said in an interview Tuesday the sale wasn't the result of financial duress. "The paper is doing well," she said, adding it was too early to speak of a new editorial direction. "I'm still absorbing."
The paper, with an audited circulation of 116,000, also replaced founder and president Russ Smith with media veteran Charles Colletti. Doug Meadow becomes chief operating officer, according to a release, which said Smith will continue to write his popular "Mugger" column. - Mark Harrington
EM.TV to Buy Henson Stake
German media company EM.TV said it has signed a letter of intent to sell a U.S. investor group a 49.9 percent stake in the Jim Henson Co., creator of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets.
EM.TV, which bought the Jim Henson Co. and rights to the Muppets in February 2000 for $680 million in cash and stock, expects to finalize the deal next month. The investment group is led by former UPN president Dean Valentine and investment company Europlay Capital Advisors. EM.TV has not publicly named a price, and declined to comment Tuesday on the deal's value. The German company said that following the sale Valentine, who stepped down earlier this year as head of UPN, would be in charge of operations at the Los Angeles-based Jim Henson Co. - The Associated Press
Feds Fight Bid to Move Trial
Federal prosecutors argued Tuesday that former WorldCom Inc. executive Scott Sullivan's wealth is "far from modest," disputing his claim that a trial in New York would be an unfair financial burden.
Sullivan was chief financial officer at WorldCom when investigators say the company carried out a $9 billion accounting fraud, the largest in U.S. history. He wants his trial moved from Manhattan federal court to Washington, D.C. The 40-year-old executive is free on a $10 million bond. He has argued that a Manhattan trial would be too expensive for his family, which lives in Boca Raton, Fla.
Prosecutors scoffed at the suggestion in papers filed Tuesday. "According to press reports," they wrote, "Sullivan was the highest paid CFO in the United States in 1997, receiving $19 million in salary, bonuses, and other compensation."
Besides his salary, Sullivan also made more than $45.3 million by selling WorldCom stock between 1995 and 2000, according to the court papers.
- The Associated Press
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
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