Boston Properties Refinances GM Building For $2.3B
The General Motors Building at 767 Fifth Ave. remains one of the most valuable office properties in the world, and its majority owner, Boston Properties, is banking on that value with a new financing package.
In its quarterly earnings release Wednesday, Boston Properties revealed the entity that owns the GM building (of which the REIT owns 60%) has agreed to refinance the property for $2.3B with a group of lenders. The 10-year, fixed-rate loan replaces a $1.6B loan package that expires in October. The company expects the new debt, at 3.43% annual interest, to close by the end of June.
Boston Properties paid a record $2.9B for the GM Building in 2008, and its loan is the biggest in NYC since 2015's record-shattering acquisition of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village by Blackstone. The 1.8M SF Midtown office tower was once one of the jewels of President Donald Trump's portfolio, before he sold it to Harry Macklowe. Chinese national Zhang Xin and the Safra family also own stakes in the tower.
The financing was a highlight in an earnings call in which Boston Properties announced it missed its revenue and earnings goals for Q1 2017, by two cents a share and $2.7M, respectively.
