Big Pay Day for MetLife: NYC Property Sells for $5.4 Billion

Excerpt from our Wall Street Breakfast, a one-page summary of this morning's key market-moving and stock-moving stories:

The World's Biggest Real Estate Deal [Business Week]

Summary: Tishman Speyer, in a joint venture with BlackRock's real estate division won a bidding war for the most expensive real estate deal ever in the U.S. MetLife sold the 80 acres of Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan (the adjacent Peter Cooper Village was also part of the deal), consisting of 18 square blocks and home to about 25,000 apartment residents, for $5.4 billion. This amount exceeds MetLife's target of nearly $5 billion, and is expected to result in an after-tax profit of about $3 billion. Some are saying Tishman Speyer and BlackRock overpaid and will face difficulty in generating a high return on investment. The mostly middle-class residents are concerned about rent hikes, but Tishman Speyer's CEO Jerry Speyer told AP, "No one should be concerned about a sudden or dramatic shift in this neighborhood's make-up, character or charm."
Related links: MetLife Press Release • AP Coverage on Forbes.com • Jim Cramer recently called MetLife "best of breed" • WSJ on MetLife's Plan to Sell (Summary)
Potentially impacted stocks and ETFs: MetLife (MET), BlackRock (BLK), PowerShares Dynamic Insurance ETF (PIC), streetTRACKS KBW Insurance ETF (KIE)

Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast summarizes today's key market- and stock-moving news. Receive it by email every weekday morning (free/no spam).

Seeking Alpha is not affiliated with Business Week.

Comment on this article