MBIA Insurance Corp. has sold its former 300,000-square-foot headquarters and 38-acre Airport Campus in the town of North Castle to joint-venture investment partners from Connecticut and northern Westchester for $23 million.
The sale price amounts to 35 percent of the property”™s recorded price in early 2010 when MBIA, the bond insurance and specialty financial services holding company, transferred its 113 King St. headquarters to a real estate affiliate of its National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. for $65,260,000.
- 113 King St. in North Castle.
National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of  MBIA in 2009 to shield the holding company’s municipal bond business from exposure to its structured-finance portfolio in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis that left the Armonk-based company paying billions of dollars in insurance claims.
The buyer in the internal property transfer five years ago, National Real Estate Holdings of Armonk LLC, was the seller for MBIA in the deal that closed this month.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc., which represented MBIA in the sale and has been retained by the new owner as the property”™s exclusive leasing agent, said it was an all-cash deal.
Cushman & Wakefield said the buyer is a joint venture of Pound Ridge-based affiliates of the Manocherian family, a prominent family in Manhattan residential and commercial real estate, and Steven Wise Associates LLC in Stamford. Wise is a co-owner of The Campus in Stamford, the former Clairol office and manufacturing campus whose tenants include Chelsea Piers Connecticut, NBCUniversal and Hospital for Special Surgery. He and joint-venture partners reportedly paid $16.75 million in that all-cash deal.
MBIA paid $14,575,000 to acquire its King Street campus in 1989. Last year, the company relocated its global headquarters and about 245 employees to The Centre at Purchase office campus, where it leased about 85,000 square feet of space at 1 Manhattanville Road and 2 Manhattanville Road.
Handling the King Street sale for Cushman & Wakefield were James Jordan, senior managing director, and Thomas J. O”™Leary, senior director of C&W”™s Capital Markets Group, and Maureen O”™Boyle and Gerry Lees, both senior directors of C&W”™s Leasing Services Group.
The property”™s new owner in Pound Ridge, Roeco, will be represented in leasing by Cushman & Wakefield”™s Trip Hoffman and Matthew Lisk, senior directors, and associate director Mike McCarthy.
Steven Wise, principal of Steven Wise Associates, in the deal announcement said the partners are “truly excited about the acquisition of this extraordinary asset. As the former MBIA headquarters, the property has been impeccably maintained and offers amenities and infrastructure on a level rarely seen in the tristate area, making it ready for immediate occupancy.”
Wise also worked with C&W brokers in leasing the 33-acre, approximately 673,000-square-foot former Clairol campus in Stamford.
