Cohen Brothers Loses HQ To Foreclosure, Risks 'Catastrophic Shutdown' In Fortress Tussle

The walls are closing in on the real estate empire of billionaire Charles Cohen, who is amid a fire sale that is so far generating far less cash than he predicted.

This week, his firm lost the 350K SF Midtown Manhattan office tower built by his father, where it has long maintained its headquarters, in a foreclosure auction. The lender of 750 Lexington Ave. won the auction with a $1,000 bid, Crain's New York Business reported.

More broadly, he risks a “catastrophic shutdown” of Cohen Brothers Realty Corp., the property business he inherited, as his longtime partner-turned-nemesis, Fortress Investment Group, is pushing him to sell his most prized assets to satisfy a $187.2M personal guarantee, Cohen wrote in a court filing last week.

A New York judge last summer granted him permission to do just that, but the two sales completed so far have come in well under previous valuations, leaving him $130M short on what he owes Fortress. 

Fortress is demanding a receiver take over the task of selling Cohen’s portfolio, which previous reports pegged at 12M SF, accusing the developer of shielding assets and even inventing fictional buyers.

Attorneys for Cohen and Fortress didn't respond to a request for comment.

Cohen said in a court filing last week that Fortress, which manages $50B of assets, has “a vindictive and personal vendetta” against him and that he should be allowed to sell the properties he has spent decades operating. 

In a last-ditch attempt to dodge receivership, Cohen said he is negotiating to sell equity stakes in his remaining New York City properties, which are centered in the nation’s hottest office market: Midtown Manhattan. Big-name investors such as Vornado, Blackstone and Starwood have expressed interest, he wrote in a court filing.

“I am motivated by self-interest to put this behind me not only for my sake, but most importantly, for the sake of my family, our employees and long-term colleagues at Cohen Brothers who have been with me for decades,” he wrote. “The appointment of a receiver would be the worst possible outcome.”

A judge didn't rule on Fortress' receivership motion at a hearing last week, instead directing Cohen, who claimed a $2B net worth in previous court filings, to provide concrete evidence of that process, The Real Deal reported.

The bitter battle started in 2022, when Fortress gave Cohen a $534M loan — which included the guarantee — tied to a handful of properties that were struggling in the pandemic. 

Cohen defaulted on the debt two years later, by which time Fortress had been acquired by Mubadala Investment Management, controlled by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Cohen had been borrowing from Fortress for decades, but he wrote that the people he had dealt with were replaced and the relationship immediately soured.

“We were misled in trusting them to do the right thing,” he wrote.

Fortress’ new management triggered the largest UCC foreclosure in history and took over three NYC properties and a design center in South Florida through the sale. But those properties didn’t cover the debt, so it took more drastic measures.

Fortress has seized Cohen’s Ferraris, fine wines and works of art, and a superyacht he owns was barred from leaving its French harbor, The Wall Street Journal reported last year. Fortress has accused Cohen of illegally transferring properties and a 220-foot yacht to his family members to avoid collection attempts, which the billionaire denies.

His access to his accounts has been restricted, but he has still maintained control of a vast portfolio of real estate. 

New York State Supreme Court Justice Joel Cohen agreed last year to let Cohen sell off 623 Fifth Ave. and 3 E. 54th St., as well as 622 Third Ave., to try to satisfy the debt. He sold 623 Fifth Ave., a Midtown Manhattan office tower he had planned to convert to condos, to Vornado in September for $218M. Earlier this month, he sold 3 E. 54th St., a vacant office building between Fifth and Madison avenues, to Vornado as well for $141M.

Despite what Cohen described as “herculean” efforts by his team to sell the properties and an “exceptional” outcome, both prices were lower than what he had valued the properties in previous court filings. While he had predicted those sales would generate $100M to pay Fortress, they wound up netting just $52M.

Fortress claims the effort to sell the 1M SF 622 Third Ave., for which Cohen tapped CBRE, is doomed to the same fate.

“Cohen knows that this property is not worth anything near what he has previously represented,” Kobre & Kim attorney Josef Klazen wrote in response to Cohen’s letter.

Cohen also owns 475 Park Ave. South, 3 Park Ave. and 979 Third Ave. in Manhattan, according to court filings, as well as a sprawling office complex in Westchester County, New York, and the jewel of his portfolio: the Pacific Design Center, a 1.6M SF complex in West Hollywood, California. 

That property's cash flow supports other Cohen Brothers holdings that are in the red, Cohen wrote in the court filings. While Fortress has pushed for him to sell it, as it is likely to fetch a sum that would significantly pay down Cohen's debt, Cohen balked at what he described as a potentially ruinous transaction.

“The sale of PDC would unequivocally jeopardize the operation and management of the entire Cohen Brothers Real Estate Portfolio,” he wrote. “The sale would lead to the eventual collapse of my business.”

Instead, he said he is negotiating with a “major publicly traded company” to sell his Westchester property, presumably 333 Westchester Ave. in White Plains, a 39-acre office campus Cohen acquired in 1998. But in a response letter, Fortress pointed out that the lender on that property is suing to foreclose on Cohen and filed a motion last month to hold the landlord in contempt for allegedly refusing to turn over rents collected to a court-appointed receiver.

Fortress told the judge overseeing the dispute that it expects to receive “little, if anything,” from the sale of that building.

“Cohen has continued to focus on cash-flow-negative properties that contain little value when compared to the amount that Cohen owes Fortress,” the lender's attorneys wrote. “Clearly, Cohen’s objective is not to satisfy the Judgment but to protract the enforcement proceedings to the point where Fortress decides to settle for less.”