Hudson Pacific to sell up to $150M in offices to pay debt

Hudson Pacific Properties is selling four office buildings for up to $150 million as it struggles with hundreds of millions in financial losses from low-performing office and studio properties.

The Brentwood-based investor is shedding real estate properties as it comes to terms with declining office and Hollywood studio occupancy, Bisnow reported, citing an earnings call.

The firm has sold or plans to sell between $100 million and $150 million in office properties to pay down its debt.

Hudson executives discussed three recent sales, including its Maxwell office building at 1019 East Fourth Place in the Arts District last month for $46 million, plus three more the company is confident will go under contract soon.

In the fourth-quarter earnings call last week, Hudson reported losses nearly double those of 2023, while outlining continued property sales and cost-cutting to stanch the bleeding.

The company’s net loss in the fourth quarter was $169.9 million, compared to a $97.9 million loss a year earlier. Hudson lost more than $364 million in 2024, compared to a $192.1 loss in 2023.

“Beyond our strong focus on driving office and studio leasing, our strategic priorities in 2025 are to continue to execute on asset sales, look for additional cost savings and further strengthen our balance sheet,” Victor Coleman, CEO of Hudson Pacific, said in a release announcing the results.

Among the reasons for the red balance sheet, he said, was “an impairment “with Quixote Studios, the West Hollywood-based production company that Hudson bought in 2022 for $360 million.

Quixote operates 23 soundstages across Los Angeles, whose entertainment industry struggles to bounce back from the pandemic, worker strikes and a plunge in studio content spending from the peaks of the streaming wars, according to Bisnow.

Hudson Pacific’s soundstages were 76.8 leased last year, while the in-service studio portfolio was 73.8 percent leased.

The firm faces $599.9 million in loans set to mature in November, in both secured and unsecured debt. Executives said on the Hudson Pacific earnings call that they plan to use the proceeds from property sales “to fully address both our 2025 and 2026 maturities.”

— Dana Bartholomew