bargains

In the market for a 6,744-square-foot penthouse with views of Central Park and the opportunity to run into Lloyd, Loeb or Sting in the elevator? Sandy Weill’s got something you might be interested in. It’s his 15CPW apartment and the Journal reports it could be yours for $88 million, merely double what Weill paid for it in 2007. What’s in it for you? In addition to a 2,077-square-foot terrace, 12 and a half foot high ceilings, plus the knowledge that Sandy “held parties for scores of guests in his 33-foot-wide living room, with the concert pianist Lang Lang performing,” you’d be making Sando, whose heart still hurts over everything that went down at Citi, look good. How so? Sandy and Joan, who’ve decided to kick it old school by downsizing to a smaller apartment in the same building (“He said he wanted it known that he was remaining true to his roots in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and wasn’t abandoning New York City”), won’t be keeping the money.

Sanford I. Weill, the former chairman and chief executive of Citigroup Inc., has put one of the most celebrated postwar penthouses in Manhattan on the market for $88 million, saying that at a difficult period in the country’s history, it is “a pretty good time” for wealthy Americans “to be quiet.” He said he intends to donate to charity the proceeds from the sale.

And, if you happen to be one of the jerks who abandoned the guy in recent years, there’s a bonus component for laying down the cash- you get to live, having bought your way off Joan Weill’s To Kill list. Continue reading »

Time was, you put a house on the market in Greenwich, Connecticut and you got your $35 million asking price in a matter of days- and it didn’t even have to come with 26-toilets, a property that would cause a serious bidding war. Greenwich could count on Wall Street to make it rain ka-ching! on people’s faces come bonus time and those people would in turn say sure, here’s $35 mill in cash, buy yourself something nice and all was right in the world. Now? With this bull shit about putting “greater emphasis on deferred compensation” and “incorporating risk management into performance measures”? It’s making would-be buyers think things through and not jump at relative bargains at $15.95 million. Continue reading »

Are you looking for love? A wife? A maid you can have sex with? Joseph Weiner is here to help! It’s been fourteen years since the 73 year-old former investment banker and Wharton grad started Hand-in-Hand, a “matchmaking agency” which asks male customers to fork over $2,000 and in exchange offers a “supervised courtship” with a young Eastern European lady of their choice. Has the financial crisis hurt H-in-H’s bottom line? On the contrary- according to Joe (a New Yorker living in London where he manages the “multinational operation”), it’s been great for business. Continue reading »