HOWDY, REXCORP!
New name, structure for Reckson after $6B Green deal
By ALEX PHILIPPIDIS :: January 26, 2007

Reckson Associates Realty Corp. has transformed into RexCorp Realty – complete with new logo and an all-new structure – following the closing Thursday late afternoon of the former company’s $6 billion acquisition by SL Green Realty Corp.

The new privately-held RexCorp will own three Westchester campuses totaling 2.8 million square feet, part of a total 11 million square feet in the county, Long Island and New Jersey. RexCorp says it has properties worth $3 billion, plus another $1 billion in projects under construction.

RexCorp and Jon L. Halpern’s Marathon Asset Management bought the Westchester holdings from Green as part of a $2-plus billion deal. The holdings include:

The 14-building, 1.6 million-square-foot Reckson Platinum portfolio, on the Westchester Avenue “Platinum Mile” straddling White Plains and Harrison.

The eight-building, 1.1 million-square-foot Reckson Tarrytown portfolio on Route 119, just over the village line in Greenburgh. That includes the five-building, 721,500-square-foot Tarrytown Corporate Center.

80 and 100 Grasslands Road in Valhalla, a 155,067-square-foot campus.

RexCorp’s chairman is Scott Rechler, who held the same title at the old Reckson. Joining Rechler in the new company are two ex-Reckson execs, president and chief financial officer Michael Maturo and vice chairman and general counsel Jason Barnett.

Reckson had been a publicly-traded real estate investment trust. The new company is intended to allow for investment into longer-term ventures without the pressure of satisfying Wall Street every quarter.

RexCorp has a new Web site to go with its new name: www.rexcorprealty.com. (Be careful: Typing in rexcorp.com will bring you to Rex Corp., a paperboard packaging company in Jacksonville, Fla.)

Judging from a peek at that new Web site, one familiar local name made the move from Reckson to RexCorp – F.D. Rich III, who with his family’s development company carried out much of the redevelopment of downtown Stamford before Reckson bought Rich’s holdings in 1996.

Another familiar name does not appear on the RexCorp Web site – Salvatore Campofranco, who had been chief operating officer with Reckson after running the former company’s Westchester operations since it expanded into the county in 1996.

SL Green spokesman Rick Matthews confirmed the closing this morning but said nobody from Green was immediately available for comment.

SL Green paid $31.68, plus .10387 of a share of its own stock, for each Reckson common stock share it bought. Green also agreed to assume $239 million in the old Reckson’s mortgage debt, $288 million in convertible debt and $968 million of unsecured notes.

SL Green will hold onto the remaining five ex-Reckson holdings in Westchester:

The 365,000-square-foot Reckson Metro Center at 360 Hamilton Ave. in downtown White Plains.

The 130,136-square-foot 140 Grand St., also in downtown White Plains.

Reckson Summit, a three-building, 654,494-square-foot campus in Valhalla.

Mount Pleasant Corporate Center, a two-building, 178,000-square-foot campus also in Valhalla.

Reckson Executive Park, a six-building, 540,000-square-foot campus in Rye Brook.

Those holdings anchor 3.6 million square feet now owned by SL Green in Westchester and Connecticut’s Fairfield counties.

Oddly enough, the mega-acquisition isn’t the deal that expanded SL Green into Westchester. That actually took place last week, when Green closed on its $47 million acquisition of Crosswest Office Center (399 Knollwood Road) in Greenburgh (White Plains address) and 300 Main St. in downtown Stamford, Conn., from Robert P. Weisz.

“These were two off-market opportunities that came to us, that we thought were good assets we could acquire at attractive prices, and that we thought would work well with the (ex-Reckson) portfolio,” David Schonbraum, vice president with SL Green, said in a Jan. 23 interview.

You can read more about that deal in the new edition of the Business Journal coming out Monday.

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