The owners of the Empire State Building have secured the necessary 80 percent of investor votes needed to form a new publicly traded real estate investment trust made up of the Midtown tower and 17 other properties, Reuters reported.
The threshold gives Anthony Malkin of Malkin Holdings, one of the largest investors in the portfolio and the face of the planned REIT, the power to use a forced buyout provision to get the remaining investors on board.
The provision — upheld by a New York State Supreme Court judge earlier this month — stipulates that investors can either sell their shares back for $100 or vote in support of the IPO.
The new REIT, dubbed Empire State Realty Trust, has an estimated $4.2 billion value.
The move to take the portfolio public has sparked the ire of some of the would-be shareholders, who sued to block the initial public offering. The case has since been settled for $55 million. [Reuters, via NYT] —Zachary Kussin