US$5.4b Stuyvesant Town complex deal completed after threatened lawsuit

New York

AMID the holiday season, SL Green Realty Corp, New York City's largest commercial landlord, dropped a bombshell: It told real estate executives and city officials two weeks ago that it would file a lawsuit to block the imminent US$5.45 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan's largest apartment complex.

The very notion jolted executives at CWCapital Asset Management, the company that was selling the 11,232-unit complex on behalf of bondholders. A lawsuit could upend a deal that they had hoped would close the books on one of the biggest financial debacles of the debt-fuelled real estate boom in 2006.

SL Green's manoeuvre infuriated City Hall, which had very publicly blessed the pending sale and was eager to declare another victory in its batt…