REAL ESTATE

MANHATTAN DA INVESTIGATING REAL ESTATE WUNDERKIND

The bigger they are, the harder they fall: real estate wunderkind Adam Hochfelder is the target of an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the investigation, but Crain’s New York Business is reporting that Mr. Hochfelder is being investigated for possible bank fraud and embezzlement. Mr. Hochfelder’s attorney for the criminal investigation, Paul Goldberger, told Crain’s that Mr. Hochfelder is not personally a target of the investigation. However, Mr. Hochfelder resigned as chief executive of his company, Max Capital Management Corp., on Friday.

The 33-year-old Mr. Hochfelder has been locked in litigation for years. In 2002, one-time partner Richard Kalikow sold 60% of his holdings in Max Capital for $26 million. He then alleged Mr. Hochfelder and his wife, Amy, withheld information that would have raised that amount.

Mr. Hochfelder exploded onto the New York real estate scene in 1997 when he bought the skyscraper at 230 Park Avenue, once the headquarters of Harry Helmsley, in 1997, at the age 27.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

ENERGY

HALLIBURTON WINS $400M IN CONTRACTS FROM OMAN

Halliburton Co., the world’s largest oilfield-services company, won contracts worth at least $400 million over five years to help Oman, the Middle East’s largest non-OPEC crude exporter, to produce more oil, the company said.

Houston, Texas-based Halliburton will assist state-controlled Petroleum Development Oman with oil well drilling, monitoring, and production to help it increase output by almost a quarter to 800,000 barrels a day of crude by 2007, the company said in a press release.

Muscat-based Petroleum Development Oman, which is 34% owned by Royal Dutch/Shell Group, produces 95% of the Persian Gulf state’s total oil output of about 700,000 barrels a day, according to government figures. The company plans to reduce operating costs by $2 billion over the next five years, partly by outsourcing work to oilfield-service companies.

– Bloomberg News

FOREIGN

KUWAITI OIL REFINERIES SHUT DOWN IN POWER OUTAGE

Kuwait’s three oil refineries, which process close to 900,000 barrels a day, were shut down yesterday after a power blackout left most of the country without electricity, a Kuwait National Petroleum Co. official said.

“We expect to start running some units later today, but full capacity won’t return for three days,” Mohammed al-Hajiri, a spokesman for the state-owned refiner, said in a phone interview.

Electricity has returned to about 25 percent of Kuwaitis and the ministry of electricity is working on returning power to all areas, said Saud al-Zeid, the ministry’s undersecretary, the state-owned Kuwait News agency or KUNA reported.

– Bloomberg News