Floyd Mayweather Jr. Bets On Office Recovery With Over $100M Investment
Floyd Mayweather Jr., who earned $560M in the ring during an undefeated boxing career, is looking for his next win in office real estate.
Mayweather is investing in a 10M SF office portfolio spanning 18 buildings owned by The 601W Cos., a New York-based office investor, The Real Deal reported.
A Mayweather spokesperson and 601W Managing Member Mark Karasick declined to specify the investment total to TRD, but sources told the celebrity news website Hollywood Unlocked that the investment exceeded a previous $100M deal with SL Green, a New York City-focused REIT.
The former boxer is betting on an office market rebound coming out of the pandemic, the spokesperson told TRD.
Karasick and representatives for Mayweather didn’t respond to Bisnow's requests for comment.
601W owns mostly trophy office towers with a concentration in New York and Chicago. The investment makes Mayweather an owner-partner in the assets, according to TRD. The portfolio includes 410 10th Ave., a Hudson Yards office tower where Amazon leased 335K SF in late 2019, and 275 Madison Ave. in Manhattan.
601W purchased the Amazon-anchored property from SL Green for $953M in 2020 as pandemic lockdowns kept most investors from making large office acquisitions. More recently, 601W secured $65M in acquisition financing in March for the Harborside 5 office tower in Jersey City.
The Chicago assets include the 83-story Aon Center, 600 W. Chicago Ave. along the Chicago River and the historic Old Post Office building, an art deco property built in 1921.
New York’s office market has started a slow recovery after the pandemic gutted the city’s office towers, but capital markets remain divided as high-quality assets have largely performed while aging buildings have seen valuations crater.
A similar trend is emerging in Chicago, where Class-A vacancy declined quarter-over-quarter in Q3 for the first time since 2019 and the gap in asking rents based on quality continues to widen.
Struggling office assets in Chicago have traded at nearly 90% discounts, but the shift in vacancy for high-quality space is being interpreted by brokers in the city as a sign that the market could be pivoting toward recovery.
The 601W investment is Mayweather's latest commercial real estate play. He partnered with CGI Merchant Group in 2022 to launch an investment platform targeting mainly athletes and celebrities that aimed to raise $250M to invest in commercial real estate.
Last month, Mayweather was also revealed to be under contract to spend $402M on a 1,000-unit New York City affordable housing portfolio. The 47-year-old former boxer, who has also faced numerous accusations of domestic violence, is planning to buy the 60-building portfolio from Black Spruce Management.
