Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Poor, Poor Steven Cohen

Freakishly rich and legally beleaguered hedge fund bazillionaire Steven A. Cohen*—Forbes estimates his fortune at $11.1 billion and last year alone he reportedly hauled in more than 2.3 billion—listed a mansion-sized duplex in a glitzy Midtown Manhattan tower just over a year ago (April, 2013) with an astronomical $115 million asking price. In January (2014) the office price of the 9,000-ish square foot urban aerie with its 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and 2 bedroom and 1 bathroom staff suite plummeted to $98 million.

Without a serious offer to purchase the apartment in over a year despite an elephantine $17 million price cut, according to the the New York Post, Mister Cohen fifty shades of furious. One of the Post's two snitchy and unnamed sources claims Mister Cohen blames his high profile lady real estate broker for failing to unload his 51st and 52nd floor white elephant.

Naturally, Your Mama has no idea if there is any veracity to the scuttlebutt but iffin there is, gurl, pleeze! Stamp your feet and have yourself a gorgeous hissy fit. Please do, Mister Cohen. Even better, please do it in a place where the media can catch it on tape because—listen to Your Mama here Mister Cohen because there is some sage advice buried in this here bite—there ain't nuthin' the hoi polloi like better than watching a man with 11-and-some billion dollars whine publicly about how his top-shelf real estate agent can't manage to sell his 9,000 square foot pied-a-terre in Midtown Manhattan for $98 million.

Of course, as was gently posited by the kids at Curbed, it could be that the sorts of people with the sort of finances and impetus to spend nearly nine figures on a super-sized duplex in New York City just don't see this particular one as a nearly nine figure duplex, despite it's admittedly rare for New York City capaciousness. (What this nosy property gossip is dying to know, though, is has Mister Cohen received any offers and, if so, their amount(s). Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?)

Meanwhile, as his sybaritic, art-filled triple-exposure Midtown duplex languishes without a buyer in sight, Mister Cohen has none-the-less hoovered up blue chip artworks and trophy real estate like, well, like it wouldn't matter an iota to his behemoth bank account if he simply gave the damn duplex to one of his hedge fund billionaire buddies. Last year alone Mister Cohen paid a bone-rattling $155 million to casino magnate Steve Wynn for Picasso's La Rêve, coughed up $23.4 million for a 10,000 square foot apartment in New York's ever more swank West Village, and he plunked down $62.5 million for a 6.5 acre ocean front estate in East Hampton, NY.

And let's not forget, butter beans, in December 2012 he shelled out $38.4 million for a nearly 10,000 square foot townhouse-type condo in the West Village and he still owns a second, land-locked spread in East Hampton as well as a downright baronial estate in Greenwich, CT, where there's a massive and muscular Richard Serra sculpture in the front yard.

*Mister Cohen was not personally charged but his firm, SAC Capital, was charged with insider trading and, after a lot of denials and belligerence and back and forth, eventually reached a settlement with the SEC in which SAC agreed to pay $1.8 billion in fines. The agreement also stipulates Mister Cohen can never manage other people's money and, hence, he's in the process of returning monies from outside investors and converting SAC Capital to a family office. But, seriously, what does he need with other people's money when he's got more than $11 billion of his own to manage and milk for even more money

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

22 comments:

wrldtrvlr said...

I would imagine his Serra sculpture inhabits his Greenwich CT. front yard rather than Greenwich Village...

Anonymous said...

If its not selling it probably is the Realtors fault. I am in the business so I feel I can say this. If its over priced its definately the realtors fault and if the marketing is not attracting the right potential buyers it is the Realtors fault. Clients dont just hire us to hang a lockbox or be a key to show their properties.

Anonymous said...

Oh maybe Cohen insisted on an unreasonable and unrealistic price. He'd probably do a lot better if he listed the place at $70M.

Anonymous said...

Sure. Blame it in the help.

Anonymous said...

Any realtor worth their salt will have an understanding on ask w the client, perhaps even more so on high ticket props. A realtor needs to know when to walk away from an outsized ego who values the prop on his personal vision of provenance value.

Sandpiper said...

Cohen, buck up and stop your whining. This is only worth what the market will bear -- within a highly limited audience.

Anonymous said...

For a guy who should know numbers, he seems shockingly unaware that the number of people looking to spend nine figures in Midtown Manhattan can probably be counted with the fingers on one hand.

Anonymous said...

In real estate it does not matter if your client is a Billionaire or a plumber, you have a fiduciary to them and an ethical obligation not to delude them to the price..wether that price comes from the client or the "professional"

Unknown said...

All Sage advise I am sure. You can bet your bottom dollar that THIS overpriced space is the result of Client Pricing.
And said client is gonna hang onto it until he gets His Price.
Most likely he bought it to make money anyway, hoping his name rings with buyers, aka Dumpity Trumpity.

Not Every Cloud has a Silver Lining, sometimes it's just Grey.
Besides, it is not really that nice looking to me. It looks cold? Stale? not stale, I can't think of any better words. It does not POP? maybe need more pics to judge.
It looks like an office inside? It doesn't look cheap just doesn't feel fun or homey ?
I really like the super high ceilings and the view. I can see why someone would want that Part.
I have heard that if your from "certain countries" you can't take massive amounts of your US dollars home, unless you can go thru serious legal hoops. To prove it is not to finance "the wrong people". Maybe he is hoping one of them will latch onto it? It lacks the strip club decor I have seen in a lot of mid-east potentates bachelor pads.

Anonymous said...

There's nothing billionaire than a billionaire hissy fit, other than a billionaire throwing a hissy fit in an elevator with Solange Knowles!

Anonymous said...

So your worth 11.1B and you need to play property flipper for a few 10s of million. Then have it publically know your a whiny customer. This guy is a magnet for bad press.
I bet this place will sell quickly now but the price will be in the 70M range. It's very un-billionaire to be crying over a few million. He needs to save face with the very limited crowd in his sand box.

Unknown said...

@10:02 You know, I never thought about the money earned from sale, compared to his net worth. but that is a good point.
Say it sells @ 70 million and it's all "Profit", that is only 3% of his reported 2.3 Billion income.
Since we all know, all of it is not Profit, it seems a lot of effort and accompanying Bad Press Image for what he can make, say he makes 10 million on this.
That is Only .004 of his Income.
Maybe he is just trying to even out his dry cleaning budget??

Unknown said...

Although 10 million is more than One Day's Full Income for Mr Cohen. I will now call anyone that makes more than 6 million buckos a day Mister.
That is based on 24 hour day, considering 12 hour-billionaire-type-day that is about 500K per Hour.
Seems like just the phone call to pick out wallpaper is not worth the time. I would keep punching the tickets that make 500,ooo per hour and not do Real Estate but hey, everyone needs to make money, he has plenty of accountants to make this little Property Project work.
I bet Mr Cohen has never even looked at this one. There is a guy that lives by me in Texas, that has a private-island and jet plane kind of money, he has some history-type photos of things he did in the 60s that I thought were cool as hell, so I asked him about them and he said, quote, I don't know anything about those cars, that was not my deal, they just used my name.
Sounds like what Donald says when a project with his name on it goes belly up.

Anonymous said...

He doesn't care about the MONEY. The money means nothing to him. He obviously has a huge EGO and can't fathom that someone doesn't want to pay $100 million for HIS apartment. It's a pride issue.

Anonymous said...


This is nothing more than a situation he can't lie and cheat back into his favor. He's better off sticking with what he does best: insider trading.

Petra's said...

Maybe he should think of getting rid of that creepy bobblehead of himself shown in listing photos. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Is this even the whole floor?
$98mil for only 3 exposures?

Anonymous said...

Does anybody care to discuss the floor plan?

Anonymous said...

Does anybody care to discuss the floor plan?

Anonymous said...

I think the floorplan is actually pretty well laid out.
I hate when columns are in front of windows, but at least here they're pretty much centered in one pane and there aren't any corner columns either.
One thing I'm a little upset over is the kitchen.
What in Gods name is a breakfast bar doing in a 98million dollar apartment?

Anonymous said...

If you are so smart, toy should learn how to spell 'definitely.'

Anonymous said...

As I recall, this apt. was on trulia for at least a couple years (and dissapeared within the last 2 or 3) with a mid 20's asking price.