Wednesday 14 May 2014
21:24

Poor, Poor Steven Cohen

Freakishly rich and legally beleaguered hedge fund bazillionaire Steven A. Cohen*—Forbes estimates his fortune at $11.1 billion and last year alone he reportedly hauled in more than 2.3 billion—listed a mansion-sized duplex in a glitzy Midtown Manhattan tower just over a year ago (April, 2013) with an astronomical $115 million asking price. In January (2014) the office price of the 9,000-ish square foot urban aerie with its 4 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms and 2 bedroom and 1 bathroom staff suite plummeted to $98 million.

Without a serious offer to purchase the apartment in over a year despite an elephantine $17 million price cut, according to the the New York Post, Mister Cohen fifty shades of furious. One of the Post's two snitchy and unnamed sources claims Mister Cohen blames his high profile lady real estate broker for failing to unload his 51st and 52nd floor white elephant.

Naturally, Your Mama has no idea if there is any veracity to the scuttlebutt but iffin there is, gurl, pleeze! Stamp your feet and have yourself a gorgeous hissy fit. Please do, Mister Cohen. Even better, please do it in a place where the media can catch it on tape because—listen to Your Mama here Mister Cohen because there is some sage advice buried in this here bite—there ain't nuthin' the hoi polloi like better than watching a man with 11-and-some billion dollars whine publicly about how his top-shelf real estate agent can't manage to sell his 9,000 square foot pied-a-terre in Midtown Manhattan for $98 million.

Of course, as was gently posited by the kids at Curbed, it could be that the sorts of people with the sort of finances and impetus to spend nearly nine figures on a super-sized duplex in New York City just don't see this particular one as a nearly nine figure duplex, despite it's admittedly rare for New York City capaciousness. (What this nosy property gossip is dying to know, though, is has Mister Cohen received any offers and, if so, their amount(s). Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?)

Meanwhile, as his sybaritic, art-filled triple-exposure Midtown duplex languishes without a buyer in sight, Mister Cohen has none-the-less hoovered up blue chip artworks and trophy real estate like, well, like it wouldn't matter an iota to his behemoth bank account if he simply gave the damn duplex to one of his hedge fund billionaire buddies. Last year alone Mister Cohen paid a bone-rattling $155 million to casino magnate Steve Wynn for Picasso's La Rêve, coughed up $23.4 million for a 10,000 square foot apartment in New York's ever more swank West Village, and he plunked down $62.5 million for a 6.5 acre ocean front estate in East Hampton, NY.

And let's not forget, butter beans, in December 2012 he shelled out $38.4 million for a nearly 10,000 square foot townhouse-type condo in the West Village and he still owns a second, land-locked spread in East Hampton as well as a downright baronial estate in Greenwich, CT, where there's a massive and muscular Richard Serra sculpture in the front yard.

*Mister Cohen was not personally charged but his firm, SAC Capital, was charged with insider trading and, after a lot of denials and belligerence and back and forth, eventually reached a settlement with the SEC in which SAC agreed to pay $1.8 billion in fines. The agreement also stipulates Mister Cohen can never manage other people's money and, hence, he's in the process of returning monies from outside investors and converting SAC Capital to a family office. But, seriously, what does he need with other people's money when he's got more than $11 billion of his own to manage and milk for even more money

listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran

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