China Life Insurance Group To Sell 1285 Sixth Avenue Stake
One of China’s biggest insurers is looking to sell its interest in a Sixth Avenue office tower as the leasing market is on track for its best year since the turn of the millennium.
China Life Insurance Group has put its minority stake in the 1.8 million-square-foot office tower at 1285 Sixth Avenue up for sale, The Real Deal has learned. China Life is eyeing a price that would value the 42-story building at $1.4 billion.
It’s the latest big-ticket offering to come to market as Manhattan office leasing recorded nearly 24 million square feet in the first half of the year, per Colliers — setting it on track for the most active year since 2000.
The building is 99 percent occupied with major tenants including the Swiss bank UBS, advertising agency BBDO and the Big Law firm Ropes & Gray. An offering memo notes a new owner could boost income when UBS’s lease comes up for renewal in 2032, while the building has “durable cash flow” from more than $2 billion of contractual rent.
A representative from China Life Insurance could not be immediately reached for comment. A Newmark team led by Adam Spies, Marcella Fasulo and Josh King is marketing the property.
China Life, one of the country’s biggest state-owned insurance companies, teamed up with RXR to buy 1285 Sixth for $1.65 billion in 2016 — the height of the wave of Chinese investment in New York commercial real estate. (RXR is maintaining its majority stake in the building.)
The partners in 2023 negotiated a loan modification at the property with Morgan Stanley and AIG, adding $220 million of equity to enhance reserves and pay down a $980 million balance. The interest rate climbed and the maturity date was pushed out by five years.
“Everyone’s very confident in this building,” RXR president Michael Maturo said at the time. “It’s got very strong cash flow, and this was very helpful in getting [the lenders] feeling good about doing an extension and modification on the loan.”
“I think everyone was very satisfied in terms of where we’re winding up at the end of the day and giving this building some time to get through this liquidity period,” he added. “After the five-year term, hopefully we’ll be in a better environment to refinance.”
The next year RXR and China Life signed Ropes & Gray to a 430,000-square-foot lease, one of Manhattan’s biggest deals of 2024.
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