by Calculated Risk on 1/06/2008 12:39:00 AM

From the NY Times: Harry Macklowe’s $6.4 Billion Bill.

This is a story we've been following because it appears Macklowe bought at the top, and he has a large bill coming due next month for a highly leveraged transaction:

[Macklowe] has a $6.4 billion debt payment coming due next month in connection with his purchase of seven ... Midtown Manhattan office buildings a year ago. When he bought those buildings from Equity Office Properties, he ... used only $50 million of his own money to do so; he borrowed $7 billion to finance the rest of the purchase.

According to the WSJ, Macklowe paid $6.8 billion for these seven properties, and borrowed a total of $7.6 billion! The NY Times also mentions a couple of other deals in possible trouble:

The Kushner Companies ... plunged into the Manhattan real estate market in 2006, paying $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue, at 53rd Street. The cash flow from 666 Fifth represents only about two-thirds of the amount needed to service the debt on the building — a shortfall of about $5 million a month — according to Real Capital Analytics, a research company in New York.

In Los Angeles, the developer Robert F. Maguire III may be forced to sell his publicly traded company, Maguire Properties, after buying a portfolio of buildings from the Blackstone Group just before the subprime credit crisis sent many of his tenants into bankruptcy.