Third Little Pig Sells G.M. Building to Vulture

Let's go back. Way back. To last year.

That's when a little piggie who dabbled in real estate by the name of Sam closed a deal with private equity firm Blackstone to sell his Equity Office Properties. With the clarity that retrospective vision allows, Sam proved wise. When selling, you want to sell at the top and Sam walked away with about $39 billion. "This deal is as solid as a brick house," said Sam as he turned his attention toward the newspaper in hand, feet up on the ottoman.

Our second little piggie, Steve, was very happy too. "Mission Accomplished," he said to himself as the deal closed. He had beat out several other forest creatures (Vornado), thus turning Blackstone into, as Businessweek reported, "the nation's biggest office landlord." But always the thinker, and to start making money on the purchase, Steve agreed to sell off several New York City properties to another piggie named Macklowe, a major New York developer, for the small sum of $7 billion. After all, coming up with $39 billion is no easy task. "This deal is as solid as a firmly constructed wood house," said Steve, turning his attention to other matters, like how to convince other forest animals to invest in his business.

After handing Steve a $7 billion dollar bill out of his wallet, Macklowe went home and said, "Son, I just bought us a bunch of buildings and cool stuff all over Manhattan." Never had a piglet walked away with so much, so fast, and good quality stuff too, or so he told his son.

"Dad?" asked William of his dad, "How will we ever pay back the people who helped us finance the deal?" but Poppa pig just said, "Trust me, when the wolves come, we will be ready. This deal is solid as the sand under a beach house."

But the deal was not so solid, and times were tough and bankers mean, and the wolves wanted their money. Or as one wolf, who lived in a big fortress surrounded by hedges said:

"Give us our money!"

So the third little pig and his son looked all around the house for something to sell in order to pay off the $7 billion dollar bill they had borrowed. "Father, father... we can sell our G.M building and that will save us, for now."

And so they did.. A vulture named Mortimer appeared out of the woods to take the building off their hands for a price. The Macklowe's, via their representative, had nothing but positive words on the deal:

The sale of these four towers will leave Macklowe Properties a leaner company, positioned to grow, Stacom said.

and

``There's a ton of money coming in from offshore right now, but it doesn't have an operating base,'' Stacom said. ``You have the team that created the GM Building sitting with real capacity now.''

But we know what the true story is. Not every little pig is a wise pig, and if you are not wise, the wolves will eat you. Nonetheless, that is how the G.M. building got sold.