QIA top spender this year, Carlyle most active: PincusCo investment sales
36 Central Park South (Credit - Google)
The Qatar Investment Authority is the top spender by dollar volume so far this year in New York City, through August 30, but the Carlyle Group is not far behind in dollar volume and in its own league in terms of number of transactions.
QIA made one large purchase, acquiring the Park Lane New York hotel building at 36 Central Park South for $622.9 million. The next largest buyer was Fortress Investment Group, which also made a single acquisition, this one valued at $598 million, for the development site at 125 Greenwich Street in the Financial District in a distress transaction.
Carlyle Group, in contrast, bought 52 properties between January 1, 2023 and August 30, 2023, an average of one approximately every five days. Nearly all of them are small walkups in Brooklyn. This continues an investment strategy the private equity firm started in December 2020 which followed on other companies’ profits in the sector, such as Greenbrook Partners, which has sold at least 23 such properties to Carlyle Group.
The other buyers with four or more acquisitions totaling at least $170 million this year were Blackstone Group, Namdar Realty Group, and Rockrose Development, according to the PincusCo data.