Africa Israel To Buy MetLife Building
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Africa Israel Investments Ltd., Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev’s property company, agreed to buy the clock tower portion of MetLife Inc.’s former New York headquarters for $200 million, its third purchase of a Manhattan landmark in three months.
Africa Israel plans to invest an additional $110 million in the 41-story, 267,000-square-foot building to convert it into luxury apartments, the company said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange yesterday. SL Green Realty Corp., the seller, acknowledged the deal in a separate statement.
Israeli property companies have been buying real estate abroad, seeking new sources of revenue. Last month, Africa Israel said it bought Manhattan’s New York Times building for $525 million, and in March it became a 50% partner in the purchase of the Apthorp Apartments on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“It’s a fabulous building,” the executive vice president of Stribling & Associates, Bruce Ehrmann, said. “This building could set a market all by itself.”
