The Church of England appears to be another organisation which failed to see the economic crisis coming, after it made a £40 million loss on an investment in an apartment complex in Manhattan, New York.
The 11,000-home apartment complex was acquired by a consortium for $5.4 billion in 2006, making it the biggest single residential property deal in the USA, according to a report in The Times newspaper.
The Church Commissioners made the investment in June 2007 – right at the peak of the property bubble. A spokesman confirmed that the Church had written off the total value of the investment, and said that lessons had been learnt about the “destructive” nature of that level of borrowing.
American property group, Tishman Speyer, has now turned the development over to its creditors. It was bought in 2006 with Black Rock Realty, with the two groups borrowing $4.4 billion to fund the deal.
However, following plummeting property values, the apartment complex was recently valued at just $1.8 billion.
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