Chinese Company To Buy GM (Building)

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The family of Soho China real estate tycoon Pan Shiyi and his wife Zhang Xin is about to buy a 40 percent stake in the 1.8 million square foot General Motors building in Manhattan, Reuters says.

The sellers include the sovereign-wealth funds of Qatar and Kuwait, as well as an investor associated with the ruling family of Dubai, the report says. If completed, the deal would value the tower at $3.4 billion. Divesting Arabs and investing Chinese appear to be a trend. Last year, Abu Dhabi sold its remaining shares in Daimler. Now the Chinese sovereign wealth fund CIC owns some three percent in Daimler, and might get more.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Pig_Iron Pig_Iron on Mar 08, 2013

    I'm assuming this is the "new" GM building on Fifth, not the old one on Broadway, nor the old-old GM site at 224 West 57th Street.

    • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Mar 08, 2013

      The one on Broadway was part of 224 West 57th, and was a showroom, not office space. There were manufacturers' showrooms up and down Broadway before WWII, the street was better known for cars than theaters back then.

  • Cargogh Cargogh on Mar 08, 2013

    MSG gives me a headache.

  • Asdf Asdf on Mar 08, 2013

    It's only a matter of time before we'll an article with the same title as this one, except with the parenthetical remark removed... Government Motors will eventually become the Chinese Government Motors.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Mar 10, 2013

    Maybe Chinese ownership would not be that bad. They couldn't do any worse than Akerson and the Chinese would rid themselves of Opel. I was hopeful for GM but I am much less so now.

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