Wilpon’s Deny New York Mets Are For Sale

The shockwaves from the Madoff scandal will reveberate for quite a while, but the hardest hit families include most of the movers and shakers in New York’s commercial real estate market.

The Wilpon family, whose grip on the Mets strengthened years ago after buying out the Doubleday’s interests, had a close relationship with Bernard Madoff’s family. Indeed, the children attended Roslyn High School, on the North Shore of Long Island, together, and Madoff worked out of an iconic Midtown property that the Wilpon’s once had a major stake in before selling the property.

And while Jeff Wilpon is not attempting to put lipstick on a pig, he is denying rumors that the family is busted, or the Mets are for sale:

“The team is not for sale, not a piece of it, not a part of it,” Wilpon said. “We are not for sale. We have no reason to sell.”

Wilpon said his family, which owns a huge portion of the Mets, would not need to recruit minority investors to bolster the team’s revenue. He would not say how much money his family or its investment firm, Sterling Equities, might have lost through its association with Madoff. Wilpon did say that none of the money invested with Madoff came from a third party, which could have subjected the Wilpons to lawsuits. NYT

The family is no doubt shaken by the recent events - the families apparently were quite close, with the younger Wilpon’s and Madoff’s friends since childhood. But their assets were apparently diversified, which is fortunate given the recovery of assets will be slim to none.

“So the individual partners lost some money at Madoff,” Wilpon said. “It doesn’t affect the Mets, it doesn’t affect the Citi Field project, and it doesn’t affect SNY or any of our other operating businesses.”

“We have other money,” Wilpon said. “Just because you guys don’t know how much money we have, we have other money outside of this, from diversity.”

Diversity? OK, in this case deworsification was a good thing. Don’t put all your assets in one place, one broker, etc...ever.

I will take Jeff at face value, and hope the losses are manageable. It would he a unfortunate time to lose control of the team; the new stadium and a solid team should have Queens rocking in 2009

But distressed investors are likely to have more property to pick from in the big Apple, given Madoff’s ties to developers all over the City:

“Many of these developers, their resources are all with Madoff,” Mr. Reisman said.

There are widespread concerns that some developers will have trouble completing projects currently under construction. Edward Blumenfeld, who runs Blumenfeld Development Group, had invested heavily with Mr. Madoff and considered him a friend. Gary Lewi, a spokesman for Mr. Blumenfeld, said he still planned to complete a shopping complex in East Harlem that is to include a Target and a Costco, as well as several other projects where construction is “in the ground.”

Stay tuned, I am sure not everyone has fessed up to their Madoff exposure just yet. But the long awaited correction of Manhattan real estate, both commerical and residential, is upon us.
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Mets Are ‘Not for Sale, Not a Piece of It’
NY TImes

Madoff Scandal Shaking Real Estate Industry
NY Times

Madoff took office space in the Lipstick in 1989 - when the Wilpon’s had an interest in the building, if I am not mistaken.

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