The Olayan Group locked in an $800 million loan for its revamped Midtown office building, better known as the Sony building.
ING Capital added $230 million of new debt to the existing $570 million loan balance on 550 Madison Avenue, according to property records. ING issued the original loan in 2016, when Olayan purchased the 41-story, 800,000-square-foot Midtown building between East 55th and East 56th streets for $1.4 billion.
The refinance comes nine months after Global financial services firm Aquarian Holdings signed a lease for 75,000 square feet, boosting occupancy to about 96 percent. Olayan recently renovated the building, hiring Scott Rechler’s RXR as a development advisor and spending $300 million to redesign the lower floors and the lobby and to add retail windows to the pink facade. The project was complicated by a contentious landmarking process.
Olayan bought the building, designed by renowned architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, from Chetrit Group and David Bistricer’s Clipper Equity. At the time, the former headquarters for AT&T, and later Sony Corporation of America, had been vacated to make way for a condo conversion.
Other tenants at the building include global insurance giant Chubb Limited, which has a 10-floor, 240,000-square-foot lease; luxury brand Hermès, which has a 72,000-square-foot headquarters lease; advisory firm Junto Capital, which occupies 25,000 square feet; and Clayton Dubilier & Rice, a private investment advisory firm that agreed to take 144,000 square feet in 2023.
Olayan Group, an often-secretive Saudi-based firm headed by sisters Lubna and Huthan Olayan, has been increasingly helping bridge ties with Wall Street players and Saudi Arabia. The Olayan family has become one of the world’s richest, with a value exceeding $50 billion, per Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
Olayan and ING Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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