Asbury's Waterfront Gains Another Partner

iStar Loan Losses Less than Feared - Sale of 5% to Uziel

iStar Holds Press Conference at 10 AM Today
iStar's 4th qtr losses at $1.47 a share vs analysts' estimates of $2.03 actually buoyed its stock on exchanges yesterday, closing at $2.94/share on 2/16.
Still it reported its investment income down 43% to $192.1 million compared with $431.6 million the previous year.
The markets may have also been boosted by the recent sale of 5 million shares of iStar to young investor, Ori Uziel, who has offices at 155 Wooster St., in NY. According to Uziel's Facebook pages, he has Facebook friends at iStar among contacts worldwide, including Israel. The share purchase gives Uziel a 5.1% interest in iStar Financial and one can presume some voting weight on matters affecting Asbury Park's redevelopment plans.
In late November, 2009, iStar Financial moved against a nonperforming $70 million loan it had made to Asbury Partners LLC, which owned most of the Asbury Park waterfront, making iStar the current owner of these properties as well as the rights to develop the beachfront.
However, iStar has other bad loans on its books, including a loan to Metro Homes of Hoboken's Dean Geibel for another construction project in Hudson County. Geibel quit his project here, two years ago, to consoldate his efforts up north with Donald Trump. He has publicly maintained his commitment to finish building on the site, called C-8, where a skeleton stood for nearly 15 years after the last redevelopment plan failed in the city. Geibel's ambitious 224-unit condominium project, named Esperanza, sits, just a subsurface garage and one floor, between 3rd and 4th Avenues and Ocean Avenue and Kingsley Street to the east and west.
more tk later