BlackRock Trims Stake in Paramount Group
BlackRock Inc. has cut its stake in Paramount Group, from a reported 14 percent down to 9.7 percent, Crain’s New York Business first reported. The latter figure is confirmed by an SEC Amended Statement of Ownership (Schedule 13G/A).
Paramount’s holdings in New York City total 11 buildings: 31 W. 52nd St.; 1301 and 1325 Avenue of the Americas; 1600 and 1633 Broadway; 712, 718 and 745 Fifth Ave.; 60 Wall St.; 900 Third Ave.; and 700 8th Ave.
BlackRock’s move follows closely behind its having decreased its stake in the owner of the Empire State Building. That reduction reportedly took BlackRock from about 10.1 percent ownership to 8.9 percent, meaning that BlackRock still has a substantial stake of about 15 million shares in the owner of King Kong’s favorite NYC landmark, Empire State Realty Trust.
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Crain’s suggested that BlackRock might have concerns about the Empire State Building’s generous revenue stream from the tower’s observatory, which has quickly slumped as tourism slides in response to President Trump’s tariff policy. A decided majority of observatory visitors are from overseas, and those numbers are generally down as of March.
Soldiering on
As Commercial Property Executive reported in January, Paramount Group sold a 45 percent stake in 900 Third Ave. for a price that implicitly valued the 36-story, 600,000-square-foot tower at about $210 million.
Despite its observatory issues, the 2.8 million-square-foot Empire State Building seems to be holding onto its appeal for office tenants. In late May of last year, fintech company Pontera Solutions Inc. relocated from Chelsea to 40,679 square feet at Empire State.
In July, management consulting firm Kearney leased a duplex on the skyscraper’s two highest office floors.
In October, law firm Hecker Fink LLP signed a 26,782-square-foot lease expansion at Empire State Building, taking a total of 53,779 square feet of space across two floors. And just earlier this month, AI work platform Workday inked a lease renewal/expansion in the tower, bringing its total space there to more than 39,000 square feet.
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