The company that controls the Empire State Building can go ahead with a vote to allow the iconic New York skyscraper to be included in a proposed real estate investment trust.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “notice of effectiveness” today for the plan to ask about 2,800 co-investors in the tower to approve the conversion of their interests into units of Empire State Realty Trust Inc., a REIT proposed by Peter Malkin and his son Anthony. Empire State Realty filed in February to raise as much as $1 billion in an initial public offering.
The determination means the SEC believes the offering document contains enough information for the investors to make an informed decision, said Thomas Voekler, an attorney at Richmond, Va.-based Kaplan Voekler Cunningham & Frank who specializes in real estate public offerings.
A group of investors whose parents and grandparents bought shares in the tower in the early 1960s have challenged the Malkins, saying the offering shortchanges them.
While yesterday’s filing says nothing about the merits of the proposed offering, “it’s a very important step,” Voekler said in an interview.
After months of amendments, “the disclosure document is set where it’s going to be set.”