San Francisco icon to be sold, closing chapter on giant property buyout

New York

THE largest real estate buyout of all time is set for its final chapter as Blackstone Group LP moves towards selling San Francisco's landmark Ferry Building and two other properties.

The waterfront icon, with its soaring clock tower modelled on the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, will go on the sales block in coming weeks, a decade after Blackstone's US$39 billion purchase of Equity Office Properties Trust, said Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for the private equity firm.