NEW YORK – Prudential Real Estate Investors and Westbrook Partners LLC are offering to sell a 34-story office tower in Boston’s financial district to take advantage of rising prices, the newsletter Real Estate Alert reported.
Broker Cushman & Wakefield has the listing for One Beacon Street, a 30-year-old building, which may sell for $350 million, the newsletter said, without citing the source of its information.
Tenants in the building, which is 95 percent occupied, include One Beacon Insurance, the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, Brown & Co. and Berkshire Group. Recent sales of Boston office buildings have restored investors’ confidence that they can make a profit by selling, even as vacancy rates rise, Real Estate Alert said. It cited Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association’s $267 million purchase of One Boston Place and GE Capital Corp.’s $82 million deal for 470 Atlantic Avenue.
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Prudential Financial Inc.’s Prisa1 pension fund sold a 50 percent share of One Beacon Street in late 2000 to Chicago-based Westbrook, in a transaction that valued the 1.1 million-square-foot tower at $280 million, the newsletter said.
EMC holders split
on board independence, diversity
HOPKINTON – EMC Corp., the world’s largest maker of computer data-storage systems, said shareholders voted to have the company create a more independent board and voted against a more diverse one, Bloomberg News reported.
A coalition of more than 20 shareholders representing about 2.7 million EMC shares, or about a tenth of 1 percent of EMC’s outstanding stock, sponsored the two proxy proposals. The votes were announced last week at EMC’s annual shareholder meeting in Southborough, Massachusetts, spokesman Michael Gallant said.
The proposal for a more independent board was supported by 56 percent of the shares cast, Gallant said, although only 29 percent of the shares outstanding were voted on the issue. The slate of directors proposed by the company passed by 87 percent, with 71 percent of the outstanding shares voted, he said.
Shareholders defeated by 68 percent the coalition’s proposal to diversify EMC’s board, currently made up of white males, with 34 percent of the shares outstanding voted on the issue, Gallant said.
Boston Beer’s
Koch says 2002 profit to fall
BOSTON – Boston Beer Co.’s earnings will fall this year because of spending for the company’s new Sam Adams Light beer, Chairman and Founder Jim Koch said in an interview.
Bloomberg News reported that Boston Beer began selling Sam Adams Light in Chicago earlier in the month, introduced it in New York last week, and plans to sell it nationally by the end of the year, Koch said. The brand is going to provide the company "significant volume" and ultimately make Boston Beer a "more profitable company," he said.
Per-share earnings "will be down from last year because of the significant investment behind Sam Adams Light," Koch said. Boston Beer was expected to earn 51 cents a share this year, according to the average estimate of three analysts surveyed by
Thomson Financial/First Call. In 2001, the brewer had net income of $7.83 million, or 47 cents.
Novartis moving
headquarters to Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE – Novartis AG, a Swiss pharmaceutical powerhouse, has confirmed increasing reports that it is moving its worldwide research headquarters here, thus boosting the area’s goal of establishing itself as the nation’s leader in biomedical research, the Boston Globe reported. Novartis announced that its Institute for Biomedical Research will hire 400 scientists and lease 255,000 square feet of laboratory space owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Novartis said planned expansions could increase the number of researchers it employs at the site to 900.
The Globe quoted Rich Aldrich managing director of R.A. Capital Associates, a Cambridge investment firm, as saying. "Big ‘pharma’ really seems to be placing its bets on this area. This is where the action is."
Already, such bio-med companies as Pfizer, Merck and Wyeth have either located or are building research facilities in the Cambridge area. Dr. Mark Fishman, chief of cardiology and director of cardiovascular research at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been hired by Novartis to direct its research institute.
FleetBoston committing
$200 million to loan program
BOSTON – FleetBoston Financial Corp. will contribute $200 million to the Neighborhood Association Corp. of America for low and moderate income mortgage programs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Boston Globe reported. NACA will screen candidates for the mortgages and assist them through the process, the Globe said. The interest on the loans will be set at 1 percent below the prevailing interest rate, such as 5 percent, rather than the current 6 percent on 30 year loans, the Globe said. NUCA plans to open an office in New Haven to deal with its Connecticut loans, as well as one in western Massachusetts to supplement its Boston office.
(Compiled from news reports and releases, print and electronic.)
