Turnabout is fair play. Remember when we laughed at the Japanese for the real-estate deals they took a bath on at the top of the market? Those birds have, it seems, come home to roost as a number of American firms shed Japanese real-estate at distressed prices. To wit:
American International Group Inc. is close to selling its Tokyo headquarters building to Nippon Life Insurance Co., Japan’s largest life insurer, for about $1 billion, a person familiar with the situation said.
An agreement for the 15-story tower in central Tokyo’s Marunouchi district may be announced as early as next week, the person said. Negotiations are continuing, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.
The property is in the most expensive office district in Japan, next to the Imperial Palace, making a potential sale a benchmark for commercial real estate prices. AIG, based in New York, is selling property and businesses after being bailed out four times by the U.S. government. The company has tapped about $45.5 billion from a U.S. credit line as of last week.
Ouch. That hurts.
AIG Said to Be Near $1 Billion Sale of Tokyo Tower to Nippon [Bloomberg]
What hurts, exactly? The real estate analyst quoted in the article said it didn’t sound like a distressed price.
Er, EP wtf? FTFA:
“It doesn’t sound like a distressed price,” said Peter Slatin, editorial director of Real Capital Analytics Inc., a New York-based firm that tracks commercial property sales.
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So pretty much no one agrees with the premise of your post. Anyways…
its almost certainly a distressed price. the aig building is right beside the imperial palace — this is the most expensive real estate in the world.
I agree w/ 1 & 2 – what was the purchase price. It doesn’t really hurt too much if they paid less than a bil for it.
- 2StopShop
they bought it back when MacArthur was running the country… this post is idiotic