HNA Puts Manhattan Tower on the Block as China’s Mega-Buyer Starts Selling

Just one week after reports surfaced that HNA was considering buying a $2.2 billion skyscraper on Manhattan’s Park Avenue the hyperactive Chinese conglomerate has announced that it is exploring the sale of another building just a half-mile down West 47th Street —  1180 Avenue of the Americas.

HNA, which has invested in two Manhattan commercial projects, bought a 90 percent stake in the 383,983-square foot (36,000 square metre) from the Carlyle Group in 2011 for $259 million, and cited the New York market’s strong fundamentals in announcing the sale offering on Thursday. Inquiries from Mingtiandi to HNA requesting further details on the potential transaction went unanswered at the time of publication.

Sale Could Bring in $350 Mil or More

The 45-storey, 180,000-square meter News Corp Building in the same area, at 1211 Sixth Avenue, sold last year for $9,721 per square meter, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. If 1180 Avenue of the Americas, which is said to be 100 percent occupied, sold for the same rate per square metre it would bring in more than $350 million.

The switch to selling comes after a year in which HNA made itself one of the world’s best known buyers of real estate and other assets. Before making its recent bid for the property on Park Avenue, HNA had totalled more than $30 billion in acquisitions since last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, including closing on a stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings last month and acquiring asset manager SkyBridge Capital earlier this year.

In addition to 1180 Avenue of the Americas HNA also controls 850 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, which it bought in cooperation with MHP Real Estate Services last year for $463 million.

The Middle Kingdom in Midtown Manhattan

The year 2016 was an busy one for Chinese acquisitions in Manhattan. In May, China Life Insurance Group took an undisclosed equity stake in 1285 Sixth Avenue in partnership with developer Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty for $1.65 billion, and as the year came to a close, China Investment Corporation forked out $1.03 billion for a 45 percent stake in a building in New York’s iconic Rockefeller Center.

Anbang Insurance’s $6 billion-plus acquisition of Strategic Hotels and Resorts in March last year included the purchase of New York’s iconic Essex House hotel, just above Central Park.