Republic First Bank became the latest smaller lender to succumb to pressures of higher interest rates on Friday when it was closed by regulators — with most of its deposits and assets acquired by Fulton Bank.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a statement that Republic First’s 32 locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen Saturday as branches of Fulton Bank. Republic First — which does business as Republic Bank — had about $6 billion of assets and $4 billion of deposits at the end of January.
The Philadelphia-based bank had struggled with similar issues as other regional lenders: high interest rates that translated into unrealized losses on loans and securities, leading to the collapse last year of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic.
The FDIC had sought buyers for Republic First in 2023 but suspended that process after the bank struck a deal with investors for a $35 million cash injection. That agreement — intended to reassure shareholders about the bank’s financial stability — fell apart earlier this year. The FDIC then restarted the sale process.
The agency estimated that the failure will cost its deposit insurance fund $667 million.
The transaction doubles Fulton’s presence in the Philadelphia market, with combined deposits of $8.6 billion, it said in a separate statement.
Shares of the bank’s parent, Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Fulton Financial Corp., climbed 7.9% to $16.85 in extended trading at 7:12 p.m. in New York. The stock had dropped 5.1% this year through the close of regular trading Friday.
“This was as it should be, in the sense that the regulators were able to seize and sell all of a weak bank to a substantially more stable bank,” said Steven Kelly, associate director of research at the Yale School of Management’s Program on Financial Stability. “That helps preserve the value of the deposit franchise — and thus avoid the unrealized losses and a run on the bank.”
This 4,092-square-foot duplex co-op at 1136 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side offers the iconic grandeur of a bygone gilded age; it’s no surprise that it was most recently the home of an Italian princess and Russian prince. Filled with pre-war details, dazzling views, and mansion-like square footage, the apartment, asking $5,800,000, was chosen [...]
The post Live like royalty on the Upper East Side for $5.8M first appeared on 6sqft.
New York City’s congestion pricing program finally has an official start date. In an interview with ABC 7 on Friday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair and CEO Janno Lieber announced the first-in-the-nation program will go into effect on Sunday, June 30 at 12 a.m. The MTA has also opened an online application portal for those qualified [...]
The post NYC’s congestion pricing program to start June 30 first appeared on 6sqft.
Mayor Eric Adams' former chief of staff and onetime counsel to the Kings County Democratic Party Frank Carone is giving up his Brooklyn bona fides and settling down in Manhattan with his wife.
Carone, a politically connected attorney who served as City Hall chief of staff until stepping down at the end of 2022 to launch his own consulting firm called Oaktree Solutions, is selling his Mill Basin mansion at 2626 National Drive for an asking price of $6.9 million, a source familiar with the family's thinking confirmed to Crain's.
The mayor's long-time confidante — who is expected to help run Adams' re-election campaign next year — and his wife Diana first put their home up for sale last year but little traction caused them to remove the listing. They decided to re-list it this spring, when the market is traditionally better, according to the family source and the Real Deal, which first reported on the listing.
City records show that the family bought the property for a little over $1 million in 2003, before tearing down what was there and building their current seven-bedroom waterfront abode from the ground up and raising their two children there.
Although the decision to move out was a difficult one, the source said, adding that now that the children have moved out, they don't need as much space — the roughly 9,000-square-foot chateau sits on more than 14,000 square feet of land and boasts a bi-level backyard with a saltwater pool, dock access to the bay, a cabana and a wood-burning pizza oven. Inside, the 3-story home features a chef's kitchen, a custom wine cellar and a primary suite with a balcony, according to the listing on Zillow, which names Brooklyn 4U Realty's Anthony Sciortino as the realtor.
Once the sale is finalized, the Carones will settle down full-time in their 45 Sutton Place South apartment they bought for $2.2 million in 2021, according to city records — when they're not visiting their daughter in Florida, who is soon to be wed, the source said.
The move also makes more sense for Carone's job and political machinations, according to the family source, who said a commute from Mill Basin to Midtown is just "not conducive."
Carone re-joined his old Brooklyn-based law firm Abrams Fensterman last year after resigning from his post at City Hall, according to reports, and also teamed up with real estate giant SL Green in its bid to open a casino in Times Square.
Charles Cohen has pushed back hard against the lender seeking millions from him in a blistering affidavit that accuses the firm of manufacturing a loan default to go after him and potentially causing more than $1 billion worth of damages to his properties.
International investment firm Fortress Investment Group had agreed to lend entities tied to Cohen's namesake firm Cohen Bros. up to about $534 million in 2022 and sued Cohen over the funds in March, claiming the borrowers had defaulted on the payments in February and that Cohen had personally guaranteed the loan. But Cohen argues in his response that Fortress pulled out of an agreement they made over the funds in bad faith and at the last minute, meaning their entire suit should be dismissed.
Cohen and his affiliates reached this agreement with Fortress in December, he said. Under the alleged deal, Fortress would defer payments and extend the loan through the third quarter of 2025, while Cohen would put up 49% of his interest in the Manhattan office building at 3 Park Ave. and the Manhattan design center at 979 Third Ave. as additional collateral.
However, Fortress reneged on this agreement "at the 11th hour," telling Cohen on Jan. 30 they would no longer honor it and giving him and his affiliates just 48 hours to pay Fortress about $19.2 million, he claims. This came as a huge shock to Cohen.
"All of us believed that we had a deal and there was no indication at all from Fortress between December 14, 2023 and January 30, 2024, that we did not have such a deal," he wrote, adding that the company's behavior "smacks of bad faith."
Cohen accuses Fortress of engineering a default so the company could sue him, given his personal guarantee of the loan. He says he "never would have agreed to increase my personal liability in this manner" if not for the agreement they reached in December.
Fortress' conduct calls the validity of the February default into question and warrants denying the company's motion for a summary judgment and dismissing their suit, Cohen argues.
The real estate executive also accuses Fortress of trying to maximize the harm and financial jeopardy their lawsuit places him in by unnecessarily filing unredacted copies of the loan agreement with it. This agreement includes sensitive information such as bank account numbers, along with what tenants in Cohen Bros. buildings pay in rent and when their leases expire. This allows Cohen's competitors to easily poach its tenants, and brokers have already approached several of them about leaving, Cohen says.
This will likely end up causing more than $1 billion in damages across the company's real estate portfolio, Cohen says.
Cohen's attorney and a representative for Fortress declined to comment on the case.
Cohen serves as president of his namesake real estate firm, and Forbes estimates his net worth at about $3 billion. The company owns several office buildings in Manhattan, many of which are the type of older properties that the pandemic and its aftermath have hit particularly hard.
One of the buildings Cohen said he planned to use as collateral in the agreement with Fortress, 3 Park Ave., has been struggling with high vacancies. Its occupancy rate fell to 54% late last year, according to data from Fitch Ratings.
“Bee hotels” are coming soon to a public plaza near you. The city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez on Thursday announced the Pollinator Port Project, which will install habitats for at-risk native bee populations at seven public plazas and open streets, giving them a place for nourishment and allowing researchers from Rutgers University [...]
The post NYC to install ‘bee hotels’ in 7 public plazas to protect at-risk pollinators first appeared on 6sqft.
New York’s first in the nation congestion pricing tolls will launch on June 30, two sources familiar with the schedule told Crain’s Friday.
The long-anticipated launch date marks when most drivers will be charged a $15 daytime toll to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, which is expected to generate billions of dollars for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to improve the region’s mass transit and reduce traffic.
Transit officials also on Friday opened an online application portal for motorists to apply for the authority's coveted discounts for low-income drivers, those with disabilities and other limited exemptions.
Under state law approved in 2019, congestion pricing is designed to collect $1 billion in annual tolls that the MTA will bond to $15 billion toward infrastructure upgrades for the city’s subway, buses and commuter rails.
It will be cheaper for motorists to drive at night. There is a 75% discount on the tolls between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. on weekdays, and 9 p.m. Friday through 5 p.m. Sunday, dropping the toll to $3.75.
Drivers traveling into Manhattan through already-tolled crossings — the Holland, Lincoln, Brooklyn-Battery or Queens-Midtown tunnels — will receive a $5 discount, reducing the fee to $10 during the day. During those overnight hours the $5 tunnel credit won’t apply. The credit also does not apply to motorists crossing the George Washington Bridge, which is north of the congestion pricing zone.
Commercial trucks will be charged between $24 and $36, depending on their size, to encourage commercial drivers to shift their operations to overnight when the fees are cheaper.
For cabbies, the MTA will add a $1.25 surcharge to the fares of yellow and green cabs, while a charge of $2.50 will be added to trips through rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft. Those fees will be passed onto passengers.
The $550 million effort by MTA contractor TransCore to install cameras along the perimeter of the congestion pricing zone is all but complete. However, lawsuits filed by New Jersey officials and other detractors hoping to stall or defeat the program are pending.
New York City this week opened a public nature preserve in Far Rockaway that serves as the centerpiece of a new sustainable mixed-use project. The 35-acre natural area marks the first phase of Arverne East, a development transforming a vacant 116-acre oceanfront site into a community with 1,650 homes, retail, and open space. The nearly [...]
The post 35-acre nature preserve opens in the Rockaways at NYC’s first net-zero community first appeared on 6sqft.