New York apartment sells for US$190m

New York apartment sells for US$190m

Jan 14, 2022

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AFP [NEW YORK] In one of the priciest sales in New York real estate history, a four-bedroom penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park was purchased for US$190 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The seller, scandal-tainted American billionaire Daniel Och, bought the apartment only two years ago for half the price at US$93 million, according to the Journal.

The 900 sqm apartment, located at 220 Central Park South in the heart of Manhattan, was one of the most expensive sales ever in New York, according to the Journal.

The paper said it went to an anonymous buyer.

A different unit in the same skyscraper was purchased in 2019 by American hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for US$238 million - the highest amount ever paid for a private home in the United States, according to the paper.

Och, 61, has a net worth estimated by Forbes to be around US$4.1 billion.

He founded the New York-based investment firm Och-Ziff Capital Management, which changed its name in September 2019 to Sculptor after a bribery scandal in which Och was directly implicated.

The company, which managed US$37.5 billion as of last year, paid US$413 million in 2016 to settle charges it bribed officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya and other African countries.

Och was personally involved in the bribery, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, authorising two corrupt transactions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

When Och purchased the Central Park penthouse in 2019, he had already changed his state of residence for tax reasons to Florida, but planned to use the New York apartment as his pied-a-terre, the Journal reported.

Och still owns another luxury apartment around the corner, which he listed for US$57.5 million in 2019, according to the Journal, but he removed the listing five months ago.